Phone Numbers Used in Voice Phishing and Other Crimes to Be Suspended Within 24 Hours

The processing time for suspending phone numbers used in crimes such as voice phishing, illegal private lending, and burner phones will be shortened from the current two to three days to within 24 hours.

The Central Radio Management Agency announced on August 28 that it has completely overhauled the "Illegal Telephone Number Suspension System" to promptly and accurately suspend illegal phone numbers, and will put it into operation starting on the 31st.

Under the Telecommunications Business Act, the conventional system operated by having related organizations such as the National Police Agency, local governments, and the Financial Supervisory Service request suspension, identify the corresponding telecommunications carrier, and issue an order.

However, identifying the carrier for certain phone numbers in real time was difficult, and suspension requests had to be entered manually, taking two to three days to process.

Limitations were also pointed out regarding the aging of the system, which was built in 2015.

As a follow-up measure to the pan-governmental "Comprehensive Measures to Eradicate Voice Phishing" announced in August of last year, the Central Radio Management Agency established a system to identify the carriers of illegal phone numbers in real time. It has also unified the suspension request channel by linking it via an application programming interface to the Integrated Analysis and Response System of the National Police Agency's Telecommunications Financial Fraud Integrated Response Center.

The Central Radio Management Agency plans to strengthen post-management regarding telecommunications carriers' compliance with orders by intensively inspecting issues such as delayed processing of suspension orders and whether users are notified of the appeal procedure by the end of the year.

(Photo: Provided by Yonhap News TV, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.