From Monday next week, businesses must be registered on telecoms’ “white lists” before they can send text messages containing Web links or phone numbers, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday.
The measure aims to curb scams through text messages, the commission said.
Article 2 of the Fraud Hazard Prevention Act (詐欺犯罪危害防制條例) authorizes telecoms to improve anti-fraud mechanisms for commercial text messaging.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
As of last month, more than 400,000 fraud-related text messages had been distributed this year, NCC data showed.
As a text message can contain no more than 80 Chinese characters, many scammers send targets to Web pages by including links, some of which are shortened to hide their destination, NCC Secretary-General Huang Wen-che (黃文哲) said.
Businesses must from Monday next week apply with telecoms if they want to include Web links and phone numbers in commercial text messages, Huang said.
Once their applications are approved, they must register the links and phone numbers that would be included in their text messages, he said.
Only messages containing those registered links and phone numbers would be distributed, he said.
Businesses must reapply if they want to change the registered information, he added.
The content of all commercial text messages would be subject to scrutiny, and telecoms should not deliver messages that contain unregistered links and phone numbers or come from businesses that have yet to secure approval to send messages, Huang said.
Telecoms should expedite delivery of text messages sent from reliable corporate customers, he said.
As for potential scams committed through text messages sent by individuals, Huang said that while those are protected by the constitutional right of freedom of correspondence, individuals would not be able to send more than 50 text messages per day, and would be subject to criminal penalties if they were found to have used text messages to commit fraud.
In other news, Minister of Digital Affairs Huang Yen-nun (黃彥男) told lawmakers at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee that starting next year online advertising platforms are to adopt a real-name system to regulate advertisers in order to curb fraud.
The ministry has rolled out a series of supporting measures since the Fraud Hazard Prevention Act entered into force in July. One of them is to require Google, Line, Meta and TikTok to take down fraudulent advertisements within 24 hours after being notified. Advertisers on the platforms must use their real names to register.
Several government-funded banks and corporations have said they would pull their ads from large digital platforms that do not require advertisers to register using real names.
“All large digital platforms are adjusting their systems to comply with anti-fraud regulations,” he said. “The real-name system would first apply to high-risk advertisers, such as those that feature celebrities in their advertisements or run large quantities of advertisements,” he said.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators
The Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office today requested that a court detain three individuals, including Keelung Department of Civil Affairs Director Chang Yuan-hsiang (張淵翔), in connection with an investigation into forged signatures used in recall campaigns. Chang is suspected of accessing a household registration system to assist with recall campaigns targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) city councilors Cheng Wen-ting (鄭文婷) and Jiho Chang (張之豪), prosecutors said. Prosecutors yesterday directed investigators to search six locations, including the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Keelung office and the residences of several recall campaign leaders. The recall campaign leaders, including Chi Wen-chuan (紀文荃), Yu Cheng-i (游正義) and Hsu Shao-yeh
RSS