‘Anti-scam’ app to launch next month

A new “anti-scam” mobile application (app) is to launch next month, the Office of the Secretary for Security, Wong Sio Chak announced in the monthly column “Safety and You” published last week on the official website of the Office.

To attempt to tackle the problem, the Security Secretariat is launching in April this year an “anti-fraud mini-program” on WeChat to assist the public in preventing fraud crimes.

The Judiciary Police (PJ) developed the app, which is currently undergoing testing before next month’s launch.

The mini-program will operate via WeChat and provide four functions including, Fraud Search, Fraud Reporting Tips, Learning about Fraud and Identifying Fraud Cases.

In general, the mini-program will allow users to enter “suspicious information” such as phone numbers, emails and bank account numbers, that will be analyzed by the app to assess their fraud risk.

The system compares the data entered against the PJ’s database, searching for hits related to previous and known scam cases.

For instance, if a given phone number has been reported to PJ in a scam complaint, this will appear as a scam risk if anyone searches information on it.

It will also allow users to easily report to the PJ new phone numbers, emails, usernames or methods used by people attempting to scam others, contributing to increased information on the same database.

According to statistics collected by the PJ last year, there were 407 cases of phone fraud, 871 cyber scams, and 329 credit card-related frauds over the internet, figures that correspond to an annual increase of 263%, 43% and 89%, respectively.

In January this year, the PJ recorded 42 cases of phone fraud, 77 cyber scams, and 35 credit card-related frauds, indicating these types of crimes continue to increase in Macau.