Airtel Uganda has launched the country’s first-ever anti-spam SMS service, aimed at protecting customers from unwanted SMS and fraud-related content.
Spam refers to unwanted or unsolicited messages usually sent in bulk. The message shows up most often in text messages from unknown numbers, email inboxes, and social media as comments or DMs promoting products or scams, among others.
60% of Ugandans receive at least 3 spam messages daily. 87% of citizens receive unwanted SMS.
Billions of shillings have been stolen by fraudsters through sending spam messages to their targets, who have fallen prey to fraud.
The Airtel anti-spam service launched today is the first of its kind on the African continent.
In the past week, Airtel’s anti-spam service has identified 2.1 million spam SMS. The system filters SMS and tells the customer that this is spam. Its efficacy stands at 99.1%. The company aims to raise the efficacy to 99.8%. This means that if 100 spam SMS messages are sent, the system will be able to detect 99.
The Airtel Uganda Managing Director, Soumendra Sahu, said that spam leads to scams, which compelled the company to take the initiative to protect its customers from falling victim.
“We took it as a challenge to solve the spam. So, Airtel took this as a challenge, because this is a big challenge. This is a big problem worldwide, and that’s why we took this as a challenge and how to solve it because the root cause is spam. It starts with spam, then it becomes a scam. 10,000 menaces of data science effort have been given for this. 12 months of rigorous testing and efforts have gone into this, and 50-plus members from different teams and different functions, like technology, IT, engineering, and marketing, have all worked together for almost 12 months,” he said.
Sahu explained how quickly the system can detect a spam message and warn the customer.
“The speed; if you see how quickly we can actually catch whether it is spam or not spam, it is two milliseconds, two milliseconds when. If you clap, it’s even faster than that. It’s like when you are thinking of a clap, it is that fast. So, within two milliseconds, everything is getting detected, and everything is getting analyzed. So, if you see incoming-to-outgoing SMS volume, frequency of device change, SIM change frequency, or robocalling devices. There are many things.”
HOW DOES THE ANTI-SPAM SERVICE WORK
Sahu said the system is based on network intelligence and artificial intelligence to analyze the data and tell the recipient that the message they have received is spam.
“There is artificial intelligence and network intelligence; both are integrated because the network has its own intelligence, and we are also using an AI model to decipher spam. And the best part is, whatever we are launching today, it’s not the end of the product because it is AI-based. So it will evolve month after month. Maybe in phase two, there will be many other things that we are going to decipher.”
WHAT WILL THE RECIPIENT SEE IF A SPAM SMS POPS UP ON THEIR PHONE?
“This is a real-time alert. When this kind of SMS comes, for example, the SMS script says, ‘Your shipment has not been delivered; update the address for this.’ And here is a link, and this link is coming from a website that is unsolicited. Definitely, this is suspected spam. In two milliseconds, we are finding this is suspected spam. And if you even click on the thing, you will find it’s spam,” Sahu explained.
The anti-spam SMS service launched today is phase one of Airtel’s war on fraud.
In phase two, which is coming soon, Sahu said the anti-fraud service will include suspicious websites.
“All the suspicious websites worldwide will be filtered through spam. The third thing is single sender to multiple recipients. So, for example, a customer is sending 200 SMS to 200 locations. It cannot be human. So those kinds of algorithms are what we are analyzing, and they will also be integrated very soon. All these features are part of our spam SMS.”
“Airtel customers are protected from the spammers. That is our commitment, and that is the confidence that I want to give to all of you—that we are committed to the government agenda and we are committed to delivering safety and security through innovative product solutions that will take care of all these menaces that are happening in the market,” Sahu said.
The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) Executive Director, Nyombi Thembo, applauded Airtel for the innovation to solve the real-sector problem of scams that have defrauded millions.
The Minister of ICT and National Guidance, Dr. Chris Baryomunsi, applauded the anti-spam service, saying that the policy objective of the government of Uganda is to transform Uganda into a digital society that is innovative, productive, and competitive.
“You (Airtel) continue to come up with innovations like the anti-spam service we have just launched. This anti-spam service powered by AI that we have just launched is a testament to the ministry’s and government’s supportive policy environment that we have created in this country to support innovation and creativity that solves real problems like spam as we expand the ICTs and integrate them into government, businesses, and personal lives,” he said.