Ireland is 'only Anglosphere country' without SMS scam filter, warns ComReg

ComReg warned that Ireland's lack of a filter left it more exposed to English-language scam messages 

ComReg said Ireland was one of a shrinking number of EU countries without an SMS scam filter 

Ireland is the "only country in the Anglosphere without an SMS scam filter, the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) has warned, leaving the State more exposed to English-language scam texts. 

The commission said other English-speaking countries, including the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Hong Kong and Singapore, all had measures in place to prevent scam texts, with Ireland also being one of a shrinking number of European Union (EU) countries without a filter. 

In a new report on potential interventions to SMS scams, ComReg said that 90% of adults in Ireland have received a scam call to their mobile phone, while 84% having received some form of scam text. 

The commission warned that these scams have become more sophisticated due to scammers spoofing local and national numbers, deploying better technology, using more convincing scripts, and combining these with AI-generated voices and deep-fake videos.

Scam calls costing €300m every year

ComReg previously established that the harm to Ireland’s economy arising from scam calls and texts was conservatively estimated at over €300m per year, with around 1,000 people defrauded of money every single day. It noted that much of this fraud originates from or uses SMS, with over 2bn scam messages being sent annually in Ireland.

In July last year, ComReg launched an SMS sender ID registry to help prevent scam SMS using a spoofed Sender ID, with messages from unregistered sender IDs being modified to "Likely Scam" to alert the recipient.

Despite its success, the commission said this measure is not enough to address all scam messages, noting that fraudsters that do not always use a false sender ID continue to fall through the cracks. In addition, it warned that future scams will likely become more sophisticated with the adoption of AI by fraudsters. 

To address this gap, ComReg said an SMS scam filter would target all SMS messages regardless of the format. Under this approach, anti-scam software would scan the content of an SMS for potentially suspicious or malicious content. 

However, the commission noted that it is unable to mandate a SMS Scam Filter with content scanning as it requires a legislative basis. ComReg highlighted that Minister Darragh O’ Brien last year said legislation to support this intervention by default for all consumers would not be forthcoming.

"The government position was subsequently confirmed to ComReg, along with the possibility of legislation to underpin a consumer ‘Opt-in’ measure," the commission noted. 

Measures 'unlikely to deliver consumer protection'

Instead, other approaches, including those that would seek consumer consent in advance of the introduction of a SMS filter, are being explored.

However, ComReg warned that such considerations if it brings forward legislation, are "unlikely to deliver consumer protection in the short or medium term."

With an SMS scam filter being ruled out, ComReg said it was seeking to protect Irish consumers by proposing other possible interventions. These include an SMS base filter, which uses a message's metadata such as phone number, country code and source network to determine whether the message is a scam.

It is also proposing an SMS cap, which would limit the number of SMS that could be sent over a defined period of time. 

ComReg said it is also considering a block of devices sued by scammers to combat domestic scam operations.

Lastly, the commission is proposing a domain name system (DMS) scam filter, which would block or restrict access to specific websites by preventing their domain names from being resolved to the correct IP addresses, instead redirecting to a website warning consumers that they have clicked on a URL used by scammers.