Telecoms companies to improve security to stop UK phone number ‘spoofing’

Six of the biggest phone companies have said they will work together and upgrade their systems to stop fraudsters being able to “spoof” UK phone numbers and commit fraud.

New technology is expected to be rolled out over the next year that will stop criminals impersonating legitimate bodies and subsequently duping people into believing they are talking to real companies, banks and government departments.

Under the new plans, which aim to tackle number spoofing by foreign call centres, it will become clear when calls are coming from abroad.

The agreement – called the second telecommunications fraud charter – is expected to be signed on Wednesday by representatives of BT/EE, Virgin Media O2, VodafoneThree, Tesco Mobile, Talk Talk and Sky as well as Comms Council UK (CCUK), an industry body, and the government.

In January, the telecoms regulator Ofcom said phone providers must block all calls from abroad that falsely displayed a UK landline number.

Under the new agreement, the six companies said they would improve “the security, traceability, and reliability of call infrastructure” within 12 months. The companies have committed to working with Ofcom to set up a call-tracing process, which will identify where a call is coming from.

Research from the Home Office says three-quarters of people are unlikely to pick up a phone call from an unknown foreign number. The changes to network technology will mean foreign call centres will not be able to spoof UK numbers, it says.

The Home Office minister David Hanson said: “In a major upgrade of our mobile network, call spoofing will be eliminated within a year – stripping away the tools scammers use to cheat people out of their hard-earned cash.”

Spoofing has become one of the most common methods of defrauding people. In such cases, people answering their phone often see the same number on their handset as that used by their bank, with some scammed after believing they are talking to the lender’s fraud department.

Murray Mackenzie, the director of fraud prevention at Virgin Media O2, said it flagged 50m scam calls every month. “No industry alone can completely prevent fraud but by working across sectors we can stop scams, disrupt organised gangs and help people protect themselves,” he added.