A fascinating press release from the Singapore Police Force says they used robotic process automation (RPA) to identify and communicate with victims of common scams.
The Anti-Scam Centre (ASC) of the Singapore Police Force, in collaboration with four partnering banks, have leveraged Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology to identify job, investment and other scam victims. Employing a proactive approach, the ASC promptly alerts potential scam victims through SMS notifications, mitigating the risk of further financial losses.
They claim to have sent 48,000 automated SMS messages to 15,000 scam victims between September 16 and December 31. This led to the disruption of 5,300 scams whilst they were still continuing, collectively saving the victims SGD69.4mn (USD52.1mn).
Very little information is provided about how the RPA identifies a scam; the authorities would not want to give criminals tips about how to adjust their techniques to evade detection. Nevertheless, this represents an exciting development in scam reduction. It also makes a nice change to see an A2P SMS service being used to reduce scams rather than enable them.
Singapore is at the vanguard of protecting consumers from scams, often adopting new methods before other countries. The authorities have an integrated strategy that covers multiple business sectors and was spearheaded by the creation of a dedicated anti-scam police unit in 2022.
