Ofcom urges phone networks to block suspicious foreign calls to reduce scams

Scam calls in the UK may decrease after radical steps by Ofcom – the UK regulatory body in charge of broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries – which has urged UK phone networks to block “suspicious” phone calls originating from abroad yet masked with a UK based phone number.

Ofcom has asked UK phone networks comply as a matter of urgency.

Most people, in the UK or elsewhere, has most likely had to deal with a scam phone call from time to time. In fact, according to a recent Ofcom report, 45 million people in the UK alone were targeted with either a scam phone call or text message in the summer of 2021 alone.

And what can make these scam phone calls appear legitimate is when they appear to have come from the UK phone number.

This is called spoofing, and it is easy to do. It means criminals operating abroad can make phone calls to UK residents, and make it appear like the phone call is also originating from the UK.

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And it is these types of phone calls, that are typically initiated through foreign VoiP technologies, that Ofcom is asking phone networks to block.

“Tackling this complex problem requires a coordinated effort from the police, Government, other regulators and industry,” Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom’s Networks and Communications Group Director said of the move.

“We’ve been working with telecoms companies to implement technical solutions, including blocking at source, suspicious international calls that are masked by a UK number. We expect these measures to be introduced as a priority, and at pace, to ensure customers are better protected.”

While Ofcom has said it believes such a move will block millions of scam phone calls each year, critics have claimed that such a move will also block legitimate phone calls (i.e. false positives.) VoiP technologies – that use Internet networks instead of traditional phone technologies to transmit a voice from one phone to another – are increasingly used by legitimate businesses, and many businesses may operate abroad but want to maintain a UK presence, and as such will want to use UK phone numbers.

In the UK, telecommunications network TalkTalk has said they have already implemented a solution to block suspicious calls originating from abroad while other networks say they are currently exploring technical solutions.