Regulatory changes mean that telecoms are required to monitor people who send more than 50 text message a day and check the purpose of such activity, the National Communications Commission said this week.
The commission in June last year updated its Guidelines for Risk Management Mechanism for Telecom Businesses to Accept Telecommunications Services Application (電信事業受理申辦電信服務風險管理機制指引) as part of government efforts to deter telephone scams, in particular taking aim at the practice of acquiring multiple phone numbers, which makes tracking down fraudsters more difficult.
Changes to the guidelines require telecoms to get two forms of ID from people who apply for services.
Photo copied by Huang Liang-chieh, Taipei Times
This year, the commission promulgated the Management Measures for Telecommunication Service User Numbers (電信事業用戶號碼使用管理辦法) to ensure that telecoms properly manage the phone numbers they control.
The commission recently revised the regulations to reinforce rules for text messages.
Scammers often send a lot of text messages that contain suspicious links, the commission said.
People who open the links could unknowingly have malware installed on their device that turns them into a hub that sends more scam messages, it said.
The new rules require telecoms to adopt risk management measures for non-commercial short message services (SMS).
If the number of short messages sent by a regular user exceeds reasonable expectations, telecoms should activate the mechanism to immediately restrict access to SMS functions, the rules say.
Telecoms estimate that people send at most 50 messages per day, so the guidelines make that a reference by which telecoms can determine when to scrutinize activity, they say.
However, there is some leniency in the rules.
If a “whitelist customer” — whose access to telecom services has never been restricted by judicial authorities — sends more than 50 text messages a day, a telecom can slightly increase the cap for them, after assessing the risk, the rules say.
However, for those who exceed the cap and have faced judicial penalties, telecoms should inquire about the purpose of sending a lot of text messages and review the information, they say.
Telecoms should determine whether the user’s device has been hijacked to forward scam messages, they say.
Telecoms can turn off SMS functions if they detect abnormal or illegal activity, the commission said, adding that operators must update their contracts to explain the SMS limits.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS