SINCE the advent of the Internet, frauds in all guises have grown so big that scamming less than a million doesn't get a headline in the local newspapers. Elsewhere, it has to be at least a billion dollars, experts tell us.
Local data on such scam-heists is scarce, but the world is losing at least US$5 trillion every year, said a research article published in December 2019, jointly by Crowe, a financial consultancy, and Britain's University of Portsmouth.
That puts to shame any bank robbery in the physical world. The scale is staggering. The money lost to fraud amounted to 70 per cent of the US$7.4 trillion the world spent on healthcare, according to the report. There is only one cure for Internet frauds: nations and platform owners must work together to reduce them. Uniting to fight a common enemy shouldn't be a novel thing for tech companies as one already exists between them and crypto exchanges, appropriately labelled "Tech Against Scams Coalition". Meta, with 2.8 billion users, is a coalition member. The idea is to have a safer digital environment.
The Malaysia-tech titan "coalition" has a similar goal. Many hands make light work, especially in the dark digital world.
Credit is due to Putrajaya for making the overture to platform owners. Early indications point to a positive response from tech titans, owners of almost all the platforms that make the cyberworld. Both stand to gain. By seeing eye to eye, Malaysia makes the cyberworld safe and secure for Malaysians, and the tech giants gain a fraud-reduced market.
Though Malaysia's overture to the titans of the cyberworld began earlier, its move to hold discussions with them on the country's licensing requirements recently is a big step forward. Though no application for licence has been received up to Thursday when the new social media regulatory framework was gazetted, Putrajaya tells us social media firms are ready to be licensed. This is welcome news.
For sure, the government can shut down the platforms or the Internet, but this is like killing the evil with the good. And the impact on life and business would be unbearable. Besides, it will be too much, too late.
An earlier cure is needed, one which can be triggered before scams hit the targets. And this can be provided more effectively by owners of platforms such as messaging apps, dating sites, digital marketplaces and the like. Fraudsters use digital tools on these platforms and tech companies can, by using artificial intelligence, detect and remove them with ease. Tech companies can do the same by making their verification processes more robust — ones that will set the alarm bells ringing when fakes are detected. Platform owners will do well by helping Malaysian enforcement agencies track down digital fraudsters.
An important way to do this is to share data on fraudsters. Prosecution is hard to do without evidence, which resides on the platforms. Online fraud is hard to eliminate. This much the platform owners acknowledge. So does Malaysia. But both know it can be reduced. Collaboration is the key to dismantling fraud once it goes digital. And working together to hold the fraudsters accountable would deter others.