WhatsApp has banned 9,400 accounts linked to ‘digital arrest’ scams, Centre tells SC

Messaging platform WhatsApp has banned 9,400 accounts linked to “digital arrest” scams following an investigation launched in January, Live Law quoted a status report filed by the Union government before the Supreme Court as saying.

The Ministry of Home Affairs informed the court that the action was part of a coordinated effort involving multiple agencies to address the problem of impersonation-based cyber fraud.

WhatsApp stated that its investigation went beyond inputs shared by government agencies, treating them as starting points to identify and dismantle wider criminal networks rather than isolated accounts, Live Law reported. .

While about 3,800 accounts had been flagged by authorities, WhatsApp said that its internal processes enabled it to act against a much larger network involved in such scams.

According to submissions placed before the court, many accounts targeting Indian users were operated from organised scam centres in Southeast Asia, particularly Cambodia.

WhatsApp told an Inter-Departmental Committee in March that it had introduced and strengthened several enforcement tools, including systems to detect misuse of official logos, logging of account display names and machine learning models designed to identify evolving scam patterns.

It also said that it maintains a database of known scam-related assets to detect repeat offenders, Bar and Bench reported.

The company added that it is developing further safeguards, such as warnings for suspicious first-time messages, visibility of account age...

Read more