This article by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) explains the new campaign “Scam se
Bacho” which is the India government in partnership with Meta (popular known name
Facebook) to deal with the increasing problem of online scams. This is in a bid to educate the
public on common scams online and cyber frauds, in the process creating user awareness to
avoid them. This consists of multiple vital departments, including MeitY, MHA, MIB, and
I4C also known as the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre. It consists of raising public
awareness on the risks, conducting information campaigns and educational meetings as well
as the implementation of new security features launched on Meta’s applications. Originally
unveiled during the recently concluded India Mobile Congress in New Delhi, a safety
awareness film starred Bollywood actor Ayushmann Khurrana.
Here are the key Highlights:
- Launch of the "Scam se Bacho" Campaign: The Government of India in partnership with Meta, the parent company of Facebook among other online platforms launched the campaign to curb the rising incidence of online scams and cyber frauds.
- Collaborative Effort: This campaign is a whole-governmental approach that engages several central ministries: the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), MIB, and I4C.
- Awareness and Education: The primary goal of the campaign is to increase awareness of the phony online offers and teach the audiences how to identify them. It embraces community mobilization involving use of the social media, radio and television programs, dramas, and awareness creation sessions, training of trainers’ sessions, and webinars.
- Technological Integration: Social media giant Meta is using its technology expertise to add new security features on its apps to fighting fraudsters. Sophisticated artificial intelligence, smart techniques will be used to detect suspicious scams ahead of time.
- Public Engagement: The campaign includes Bollywood actor Ayushmann Khurrana, where a short movie has been released that teaches people about security measures and tricks scammers can use on the Internet.
- Official Launch: The campaign was launched in New Delhi with the presence of top government officials as well as from Meta.
- Community Involvement: The campaign also aims to encourage people of the community to work together by providing collective solutions to make the use of the internet safer.
These milestones demonstrate all aspects of the “Scam se Bacho” campaign in confronting
the emerging problem of cyber fraud: the engagement of the private sector, cooperation with
technology firms, and the utilization of technology to provide members of the public with
protection against fraudulent activity.
About the Initiative
In a time where software interactions govern our basic existence, one of the most prevalent
threats in recent years is a risk in cyberspace. These scams including traditional phishing,
mimicked bank websites, cloned email messages and identity theft have not only cost
considerable amount of money to the users, but also have undermined their confidence in
the new form of communication technology.
The emerging danger on the internet scams
Cybercrimes particularly relating to the internet have increased significantly particularly due
to online purchasing. This is contain scammers have improve in their mastery moving to
higher levels in their tricks to use on the innocent users. Based on the latest statistics,
internet fraud has increased by an enormous percentage within a decade and costs many
billions of U.S dollars per annum. These scams also include phishing or users sending
sensitive information to con artists and involve more complex schemes such as malware and
subsequently ransomware. Consequently, the result of these scams is not only monetary. I
can cause other effects too, Firstly, individuals feel a negative emotional state and violated,
second, can cause a severe effect to one’s mental state.
Goals of the Scam se Bacho Program
At its core, the "Scam se Bacho" campaign seeks to create a robust defence against online
scams through three primary objectives:
- Raising Public Awareness: The users should be informed so that they can identify the different kinds of scams there are online. The campaign entails educating the public through, Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms; workshops and public service announcements.
- Empowering Users: Education of users about how to avoid becoming victims of scams is also part of the campaign with necessary tools being made available. This is in addition to undertaking the usual practices of exercising caution over internet passwords, the setting of ‘strong’ passwords, the use of two-step verification, and unsolicited communications.
- Technological Intervention: Using Meta technological infrastructure the campaign try to distribute and apply the sophisticated technologies and the algorithms to prevent the scam activities on Meta platforms. This involves the use of Artificial Intelligence for example to detect the formation of scams and to reject any such content.
Policies and Activities under the Campaign
Some of the key initiatives under the campaign include:
- Public Awareness Campaigns: Using the feature of social media, the campaign shares informative posts containing the description of the most widespread Internet frauds. These are videos, info-graphics, and articles that focus on real-life scams, and ways to avoid them.
- Educational Workshops and Webinars: To this end, the campaign holds workshops and webinars simplifying the awareness campaigns by cyber security professionals that help in identifying the con artist and their tricks. The kind of sessions that are presented in these forums are more of a question and answer basis and are an effective way to learn more practical information.
- Collaborations with Cyber security Experts: It works with top cyber security associations to counter the rising risks effectively, as part of the campaign. The collaboration with professionals guarantees that all the actions of the campaign are grounded on current tendencies in cyberspace and security technologies.
- Introduction of New Security Features on Meta Platforms: The Meta Company is implementing enhanced security protocols across its platforms to offer improved user safety. This includes better verification to overcome different fraud cases, better spam filters to counteract different spam scams, and AI technologies that can prevent different scams on the go.
Role of Meta in the Campaign
It is the most relevant part for the scheme. Being a company with an enormous number of
users and great technology, Meta can produce a powerful result. These acute scam risks are
being addressed by the company through the application of the state-of-the-art machine
learning algorithms based on data analytics. Also, the Meta platforms are also used as the
primary way of spreading educational materials on how to avoid online scams.
A significant aspect of Meta’s effort is the use of Artificial Intelligence technologies that
would help detect signs regarding scam attempts. By early detection of such behaviours,
Meta is able to deny such scams a chance to target users as the content will be removed
before posting.
Government's Role and Support
When it comes to the "Scam se Bacho" campaign, the Government of India plays a
significant role in assisting to regulate and serving as a middleman in communicating with
the people. The administrative actors currently participating in the initiative are MeitY, the
MHA, and the MIB. These ministries liaison with Meta to make certain there is synergy in
the war against online scams.
The government’s support also extends to the police forces which work as a burning force in
detecting and arresting cyber criminals. The goals of the campaign also focus on people
involvement in counterterrorism, urging the citizens to become the ‘eyes and ears’ of the
government and report any suspicious actions, to identify signs of any possible scams.
Impact and Expected Outcomes
The program is designed to transform cyberspace better. Thus, the campaign aims to ensure
strong protection against cyber threats based on increasing awareness, strengthening the
position of users and implementing new technologies. The indices of outcome in the initial
stages include enhanced reporting of attempted scams, reduced successful scams, and
enhanced public awareness of cyber-scams.
It is important to admit that, the campaign, endeavours to fight scam have sustained to a
new level. Through such an approach, this endeavour supports the deployment of public-
private partnerships in tackling cyber security risks. In this ever-changing world of the
digital environment, the campaign becomes an inspiring light to help users to stay updated
and active to protect themselves against cyber threats. Just as it seems, only with combined
efforts of all the people, the goal of making digital space free of scams is totally achievable.
Key points raised by critics:
Positive Feedback
- Proactive Approach: Some have applauded the campaign for taking a much more aggressive approach to combating the increasing menace of internet fraud. This partnership is a key step towards the advanced security in this cyber world.
- Public Awareness: The aspect of the ad that has been highly welcomed is raising people's awareness and educating them about online scams. The release of information via the social networks and any other online media sources is deemed suitable in the coverage of a large number of people.
- Technological Integration: The use of the latest innovations developed by Meta to introduce and detect scams has been lauded for using high technology to protect users.
Areas for Improvement
- Sustainability: Others have looked at it with suspicion, viewing the sustained nature of the campaign with certain suspicion. They say that constant actions and changes are needed to battle the new strategies that the fraudsters produce.
- Accessibility: Some proposals during and after the campaign included extending it to cover different categories of the target group especially the social media illiterate. Simplification of the educational content so that all users can relate to it is also very essential.
- Measuring Impact: Some commentators called for increased focus on tangible results and told them how they could measure the success of this campaign. It may be essential to track further decrease of scam incidents, and, possibly, measure the effectiveness of the educational campaigns launched.
In conclusion, it can be said that the “Scam se Bacho” campaign is generally successful; there is understanding that further work with changes is needed to counteract new and changing online scams.