Phone users will be better protected against scammers using fake phone numbers, under new rules announced today by Ofcom.
Scams are a widespread problem – 41 million people have received a suspicious call or text in the last three months. A common tactic used by criminals to defraud victims is to imitate – or ‘spoof’ – the phone numbers of legitimate organisations, like banks and Government departments.
To help combat this problem, we are strengthening our rules and guidance to require all telephone networks involved in transmitting calls – either to mobiles or landlines – to identify and block spoofed calls, where technically feasible. This will make it harder for scammers to use spoofed numbers.
We have also today issued new guidance to phone companies on how they can prevent scammers from accessing valid phone numbers. This sets out clear expectations for providers to make sure they run ‘know your customer’ checks on business customers.
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