- 28% of all calls are flagged as spam or scam calls by the new tech
BT has turned to AI in a bid to quell the high number of scam and spam calls plaguing Britons on their landlines each day.
The telecoms giant says its new AI tech has stopped millions of attempts from scammers in the past four months.
The AI tool monitors incoming calls to notify customers of any suspected spam or scam calls. It is powered by US-based protection company Hiya.
BT introduced the scam prevention tool in May and in the four month period stopped 20.1million scam and spam calls in their tracks – 2.7million scam calls and 17.7million ‘nuisance’ spam calls.
Scam-beating: BT is using AI to detect and block scam and spam calls before they reach landline users
Given this trajectory, it could prevent over 60million more scam calls from reaching landline users in the space of a year – or 5million per month.
Home phones are still used by four in five people over the age of 65 in the UK, a group facing a particularly high risk of phone-based ‘vishing’ scams according to BT.
BT is urging its landline users to check they (and their loved ones) have the new technology set up, as scam calls tend to ramp up in the months leading up to Christmas.
AI voice cloning scams are on the rise, prompting Starling Bank to launch an awareness campaign around them to warn customers.
An AI voice cloning scam is a sophisticated type of scam where fraudsters use voice cloning technology to replicate a person’s voice from a short clip of audio.
Fraudsters can cheaply and easily capture and make an audio deepfake online in just a few minutes.
Scammers can then identify their victim’s family members and use the cloned voice to stage a phone call, voice message or voicemail to them, asking for money that is needed urgently, for example due to being in an accident or to pay rent.
How does BT block scam and spam calls?
BT’s landline service, Digital Voice, has incorporated an AI powered tool which monitors incoming calls and notifies customers of any suspected spam calls.
It uses machine learning, powered by spam and fraud call protection company Hiya, to gather information on scam detection and and improve protection with each malicious call it encounters – in one day it can block more than 46,500 scam calls.
On receiving a potential spam call, customers see a visual warning on their landline phone display, saying, ‘nuisance?’.
They then have the choice to reject or accept an inbound call that is flagged as a spam call by the tech.
Scam calls are automatically diverted to a customer’s junk voicemail, protecting them from the threat of scammers.
Any call from a registered business will have their name displayed to verify it as genuine.
UK residents received an average of three spam calls per month from January to June this year, with 28 per cent of all unknown calls flagged as spam, data from Hiya shows.
This adds up to around 195million spam calls per month.
Some 2.5million BT customers already receive the new call vetting service, through Digital Voice.
BT says this figure is set to double as more customers upgrade to digital landlines, and BT expects to block more than 1.5million scam calls monthly once all customers have moved to Digital Voice.
Lucy Baker MBE, a director of BT, said: ‘This new Hiya technology is now integrated with Digital Voice and is proving to be incredibly effective at stopping scam calls. We remain committed to protecting customers during the switch to digital landlines.
Alex Algard, chief executive of Hiya, added: ‘We’re thrilled to be supporting BT in its mission to shield users from unwanted calls. It’s great to see that our technology has successfully blocked fraud and spam calls.’
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