New Delhi, Feb 5 (IANS) The government said on Thursday that 39.43 lakh mobile connections have been disconnected, 2.27 lakh mobile handsets have been blacklisted and 1.31 lakh SMS templates have been blacklisted in the country, in a bid to prevent cyber-crimes and financial frauds.

Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has established Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP) for prevention of misuse of telecom resources in cyber-crimes and financial frauds, said Minister of State for Communications, Dr Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar, in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.

He further added that the DoT’s Sanchar Saathi initiative is accessible through web portal and Mobile App.

Chakshu facility of Sanchar Saathi enables citizens to report suspected fraud communications under various categories.

The ‘Sanchar Saathi’ initiative empowers vigilant citizens to report suspected fraud communications, where a fraud was attempted but not actually committed.

According to the minister, cases involving actual financial loss due to frauds are handled by Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), an organization under Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) that has been mandated to handle cyber-crime as per allocation of business rules.

“Action is generally taken after giving opportunity for re-verification to the mobile user. The details of action taken based on such analysis are available on the dashboard of Sanchar Saathi portal. Based on 7.7 lakh inputs provided by the citizens, 39.43 lakhs mobile connections have been disconnected, 2.27 lakh mobile handsets have been blacklisted and 1.31 lakh SMS templates have been blacklisted,” said the minister.

According to the minister, based on the information shared on DIP, stakeholders initiate necessary action as per their analysis on the associated accounts /profiles in their respective domain.

As reported by stakeholders, total fraud amount prevented through FRI is more than Rs 1,000 crore based on transaction decline and alert/notifications given to citizens.

“Further, WhatsApp has disengaged 28 lakh profiles/accounts associated with shared mobile numbers,” he informed.

–IANS

na/