By Catherine Cueto

PLDT's wireless subsidiary Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) on Monday said that they are gearing up for SIM registration as Congress transmits the bill for the signature of the President.

"We are carefully reviewing the key updates in the currently ratified bill and look forward to contributing in the crafting of the bill's implementing rules and regulations, ready to bring our knowledge of global best practices to the table," Atty Roy D. Ibay, Smart VP and Head of Regulatory Affairs, said in a statement.

The statement said that alongside their support for SIM registration, Smart and parent company PLDT's long-standing consumer protection initiatives include measures to curb mobile phone-aided criminal activities such as text scams.

In addition to blocking SIMs that send ‘smishing’ messages, Smart has also blocked Uniform Resource Locators (URL) linked to these illegal activities.

From June to August alone, Smart has blocked 167,000 numbers that were found to have been used in fraudulent activities. The network has also blocked around 342 million smishing messages in the same time frame.

The statement said that PLDT and Smart invested nearly ?3 billion in cybersecurity infrastructure in 2021 to safeguard the public against emerging cyberthreats, vulnerabilities, and other online criminal activities.

PLDT and Smart have also launched regular information dissemination and customer education campaigns to help subscribers identify red flags that indicate scams and fraud.

Earlier, Globe Telecoms welcomed the welcome the passage of the SIM Registration Bill in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

In a statement, Globe said the passage is a crucial step in addressing the escalating problem of spam and scam messages, which fraudsters use to dupe mobile phone users.

The statement also said that Globe has been keenly following developments on the bill, working closely with Congress to ensure the crafting of a comprehensive and future-proof measure.

They also said that they stand ready to work with the government in drafting rational implementing rules and regulations that will take into account the immense task of getting tens of millions of prepaid SIM users registered retroactively.

Globe expressed belief that the SIM Registration will serve as a major deterrent against spam and scam SMS, as it will finally lift the veil of anonymity that comes with using prepaid SIM cards.

Meanwhile, trying to to keep ahead of authorities, text scammers have employed a possible shift to a new modus operandi, by going into text aggregators, the National Privacy Commission (NPC) said over the weekend.

In a radio interview, NPC Deputy Commissioner Leandro Angelo Aguirre explained that text aggregators are those carries an ability to send messages using clients.

An example of which are applications that has access to a list of telecommunication companies where they can send these.

Currently, the NPC is conducting an investigation over the matter.

"Ang aggregator, for example, kapag gumagamit tayo ng Agoda o Booking.com, ganoon sila para sa telco. Mayroon silang listahan ng lahat ng telco, para kung kumpanya kayo, gusto niyo magpadala, gagamitin niyo yung platform nila tapos sila yung magpu-push sa mga telcos," Aguirre said.

(An aggregator, for example, when we use apps such as Agoda or Booking.com, it is like that for a telco. They have a list of all telco, so if you are a company, and you want to send, you use their platform and then they push it to the telcos,” Aguirre said.

"Ito ang tinatawag na application to phone. Hindi siya phone-to-phone," he added.

"Medyo mahirap siya i-solve kasi simula nung nag-usap tayo, nagpalit na yung ginagawa nila ngayon. So panibagong investigation nanaman ang tinitingnan natin,” he added.

(This is what we call application to phone. This is not phone-to-phone. It is quite hard to solve because since we started, they have changed their tactics. So a new investigation is needed)

The statement of the NPC is a contrast to their previous appearance before the Senate inquiry where they said that aggregators contracted by telcos and contact tracing apps are “unlikely” to be the sources of these unsolicited, personalized text messages.

SMS aggregators are the link between carrier networks, such as Globe, Smart and Dito, and text messaging software providers. An SMS aggregator sits between the software and all of the wireless carriers to ensure carrier compliance.

An SMS aggregator does the work of sending a text message to every carrier to be delivered to a customer on behalf of the brand. If for example a brand wants to send information to their customers, it uses such aggregators.

Aguirre said there are still challenges on identifying sources of text scams, as the scams are global.

He also said of the possibility that the aggregators' official account or platforms were hacked.

"Puwedeng mangyari na may message na may sender IDs na kumbaga XYZ company, hindi ibig sabihin automatically na hindi totoo yung sa XYZ company kasi puwedeng na-compromise mismo yung official account ng XYZ company na 'yon dito sa aggregator," he said.

(What can happen is there is a message with sender IDs like XYZ company, it does not automatically mean that the XYZ company does not exist, because they might have been compromised their official account of the XYZ company)
 
"Titingnan natin kaninong aggregator nanggaling, sino ang kliyente ng aggregator na nagpadala noon at titingnan natin, na-compromise ba talaga account mo? Kung na-compromise 'yung account mo, bakit hindi ka nag-report sa amin? Kasi breach yan."

(We are looking at which aggregator the message came from who is the client of the aggregator that send it and we will check if they were compromised. If they were compromised, why did you not report it to us? Because that is a breach)

Meanwhile, the NPC praised Globe's move to block messages that have clickable links. However, he Aguirre said such could affect subscribers sending legitimate links.

The National Telecommunications Commission and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas have ordered the blocking of URLs that lead to malicious sites as well as the inclusion of links in text messages.

The Senate and House of Representatives ratified the SIM Registration bill.

It is expected to be transmitted to the Office of the President for approval.