- A growing number of WhatsApp users in India are reporting a massive surge in incoming international spam calls over the past few days.
- Many users complained on Twitter that a major chunk of these spam calls had country codes belonging to Indonesia (+62), Vietnam (+84), Malaysia (+60), Kenya (+254) and Ethiopia (+251).
- The Meta-owned company said international scam calls are a new way that bad actors have recently adopted, and that the platform has quickly ramped up AI and ML systems to bring down such incidents significantly.
- “Our new enforcement will reduce the current calling rate by at least 50 per cent and we expect to be able to control the current incidence effectively. We will continue to work relentlessly towards ensuring a safe experience for our users,” the WhatsApp spokesperson said.
- handrasekhar tweeted on Wednesday that the government will investigate a claim that WhatsApp accessed the microphone of smartphone users while the phone was not in use.
- This followed a claim that WhatsApp accessed a user’s microphone while he was sleeping.
- WhatsApp had then responded that users have full control over their mic settings.
