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.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
RSS