GCash ramps up protection of user information vs. text scams

Mobile wallet service provider GCash has upgraded privacy protection for its users by hiding their personal information in its send money service.

The modification, according to GCash’s chief information security officer Mark Frogoso, is a further measure of consumer safety because the transfer money service previously made the receiver’s name available for “convenience” and to aid in confirming the intended recipient.

Frogoso asserted that there has been no data breach or leak in GCash’s systems and that the 66 million or so customers of the company’s services continue to have “data integrity.”

“We have been working closely with the National Privacy Commission (NPC) on the issue of text scams with names. We wish to assure our customers that our systems and infrastructure remain secure and there is no incidence of any data leak or breach,” he said.

He said that the new upgrade will aid in finding a balance between client satisfaction and data security safeguards.

For increased security and simpler access to transaction history, GCash has also moved transaction confirmations from text messages to its mobile app inbox.

The parent firm of GCash, Globe Telecom Inc. (Globe), has invested PHP1.1 billion to improve its skills to identify and reject spam and scam communications in response to an extraordinary increase in such messages amid the height of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Data aggregators, or businesses that gather data for commercial purposes, are unlikely to be the cause of the recent uptick in SMS scams involving the identities of their recipients, according to information released by the NPC on Wednesday.

The privacy body is still in charge of the investigation into these SMS frauds and is presently determining if the victims’ identities appear in the same manner in messaging apps, mobile wallets, and payment apps.