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Use technology to eliminate phone scams

I support increasing anti-scam awareness by sending voice messages in various languages to vulnerable people, posting scam alerts everywhere, having a hotline for immediate help and so on (“Use technology to raise level of scam awareness”; Sept 15).

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Cheang Peng Wah

I support increasing anti-scam awareness by sending voice messages in various languages to vulnerable people, posting scam alerts everywhere, having a hotline for immediate help and so on (“Use technology to raise level of scam awareness”; Sept 15).

However, collectively, these are operationally complicated and tend to be ignored by forgetful ordinary folk, whom scammers target.

We talk about wanting to become a Smart Nation, and there are many areas to make the people of a Smart Nation smarter, one of which is to leverage technology to eliminate phone scams.

If email service providers can provide spam filters, free, to help email recipients guard against spammers and crooks propagating malware, then well-endowed telecom companies with smart and pervasive digital intelligent agents could help guard against scammers.

If the telcos are incapable, they must collaborate with our authorities and the high-tech weapons at their disposal.

If the telcos are unwilling, the authorities must incentivise or jolt them into agreement.

If we are not that smart, yet do nothing to become smarter other than talking, vulnerable people would continue to be less-than-alert to schemers.

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