The London Action Plan (LAP) held a meeting last 25 June. The LAP meets periodically via conference call to continue work on issues pending from the physical meeting held annually in October/November. It is an international organisation which shares good practices of European and international organisations that fight unwanted communications (spam) and associated phenomena affecting the security of electronic communication networks and electronic commerce.
ANACOM was represented at the June meeting, in which the discussion focused on fraud via call centres using caller ID spoofing and robocall techniques. Affiliate marketing techniques were also targeted for special attention due to occurrences of trust exploitation and consumer fraud.
Caller ID spoofing is a technique generally used to make telemarketing calls. It exploits technology from the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and voice over internet protocol (VoIP); the call originator cannot be identified.
The caller ID spoofing technique has served as the basis for robocalls, automatic mechanisms for making previously recorded calls.
Fraudulent schemes that use the caller ID spoofing by robocall technique include the following:
- consumer credit;
- tax collection and other matters ostensibly originating in government bodies;
- payment of water, gas, electricity and telephone bills;
- lottery and prize awards.
