By Catherine Cueto

The National Telecommunications Commission on Tuesday ordered Dito Telecommunity, Globe Telecoms, and Smart Communications to deactivate all clickable URLs or links that lead to malicious websites, as contained in the text messages sent to the consumers, amid the proliferation of SMS-based scams.

In a memorandum, the NTC said that the three major telco players should conduct moves that would immediately block domains, URLs, links, or QR codes that would lead to or contain fraudulent sites.

They added that the existing database was gathered by the government agencies such as the NTC, the National Privacy Commission, the Department of Trade and Industry, the police, and reports generated from machine learning or artificial intelligence.

The said order was made in the wake of the continued proliferation of scam or smishing messages to which some already contain the recipient's names.

It became an issue for the consumers or subscribers with the SMS spam messages becoming more personalized, containing surnames and the recipient's full name.

The telecom companies are tasked to issue a written report to the NTC on or before Sept. 16.

Earlier, Globe Telecoms implemented changes with their digital wallet GCash where the recipient's complete name has been edited.

The National Privacy Commission (NPC) had earlier said that using personal information in spamming messages does not mean that the personal data of Filipinos were collected from a large-scale data breach or even from contact tracing forms.

The Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation have conducted parallel investigations.

The telecom companies had been pushing for the approval of the SIM card registration act, which they said would help deter SMS-linked illegal activities.

Lawmakers have also pushed for the said registration with House Bill 14 or the proposed "Act Requiring The Registration of Subscriber Identity Module Cards," approved by the House of Representatives Information and Communication Technology Committee on Sept. 5.

Meanwhile, the telecom companies said they have been ramping up their detection and cyber security efforts to protect consumers.