Original article ISPreview UK:
A new landmark Telecommunications Charter has today been agreed between several of the UK’s leading broadband, mobile and phone providers, which commits BT (EE), Virgin Media (O2), VodafoneThree, Tesco Mobile, TalkTalk, Sky (Sky Broadband) and the Comms Council UK to a “crack down on scam calls and fraud“. A sub-charter also exists for B2B phone services.
Just to recap. Most of the United Kingdom’s major telecoms providers have already implemented various technical measures to tackle Nuisance Calls and Scam Calls. But these aren’t always 100% effective, and not all operators have introduced the same level of protections. Suffice to say, there’s still plenty of scope for improvement, and Ofcom are forever pushing new changes to boost national defences against such fraud (here, here and here).
NOTE: Scam calls come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes, from people claiming that your computer has been infected with viruses, to those pretending to represent your bank, insurance company, HMRC or even using AI to clone the voice of a family member etc. The goal in all these cases is to extract personal and financial details for abuse.
The new Telecommunications Charter – due to be signed at the BT Tower in London today – seeks to support those efforts, not least by committing the signatories to actively engage with the development of a UK Traceback Solution (i.e. allowing providers and the police to trace the origin of suspicious or fraudulent calls across interconnected networks).
In addition, they’ve also agreed to put more effort into improving related consumer awareness and enhancing the protection and support given to victims of fraud (i.e. help times will be slashed to two weeks). The group has further agreed to designing scalable, collaborative data-sharing models between the telecoms, banking, and tech sectors to support a more co-ordinated approach with the police, which will help to track the scammers down and stop them.
The top mobile networks have further committed to block foreign call centres from impersonating banks within the next year, which follows on from some of Ofcom’s recent work. Data shows that 96% of mobile users decide whether to answer a call based on the number displayed on their screen, with three-quarters unlikely to pick up if it’s from an unknown international number.
All of this is intended to help support the government’s upcoming Fraud Strategy, which will broadly aim to unite industry, disrupt criminal networks and better protect the public. O2 have separately been pushing the government to create a dedicated, centralised national policing agency to handle all fraud investigations (here), although it remains to be seen if that will materialise.
Minister for Fraud, Lord Hanson, said:
“Spoofed calls allow scammers to deceive the public with fake identities and false promises. This government is committed to tackling fraud.
In a major upgrade of our mobile network, call spoofing will be eliminated within a year – stripping away the tools scammers use to cheat people out of their hard-earned cash.
We’re stepping up our defences to protect victims and make sure the UK is the hardest place in the world for scammers to operate.”
The announcement goes on to mention that “AI will also be deployed to identify and block suspicious calls and texts“, although most of the major mobile and phone operators are already using such tools to tackle the problem – some for several years. So we assume they mean that the use of such tools will now be expanded upon and spread to more providers.
Finally, the Comms Council UK (CCUK), which represents the UK’s VoIP sector, will work to “create practical guidance for members” to help prevent and tackle fraud. This reflects the aforementioned B2B voice and telephony sub-charter, where CCUK will help business customers by developing business victim support principles and best practice guidance to raise standards in identifying and responding to fraud.
We’ll finish with the usual barrage of industry comments:
Claire Gillies, CEO at BT’s Consumer Division, said:
“Protecting BT, EE and Plusnet customers from scams and fraud is an imperative for us. To be the network customers can trust we have developed cutting-edge, AI-driven solutions to keep everyone safe. We’re proud that in 2025, we’re blocking 3 million scams a day across our network and continuing to innovate at pace to protect our customers from the growing threat of fraud. This second fraud charter is an important and timely intervention for the telecoms industry. It’s vital that we collaborate as an industry to protect the nation from this growing crime.”
Rachel Andrews, Fraud Director at VodafoneThree, said:
“Vodafone and Three block millions of scam texts and fraudulent calls for their customers every day. The second Telecommunications Fraud Charter will take this even further, strengthening how we work across the industry and with government to stay one step ahead of criminals. By combining data, collaboration and innovation, we can keep people and businesses safe and build the trusted, secure digital networks the UK depends on every day.”
Murray Mackenzie, VMO2’s Director of Fraud Prevention, said:
“Fraud has a devasting impact on its victims and costs the telecoms industry many millions of pounds each year. We’re committed to preventing fraud and to date, we’ve blocked more than 1 billion scam texts from reaching our customers and are using AI to flag 50 million scam calls every month.
No industry alone can completely prevent fraud but by working across sectors we can stop scams, disrupt organised gangs and help people protect themselves. We’re playing our part and urge government to match our resolve in the forthcoming Fraud Strategy by providing law enforcement with the resources needed to bring fraudsters to justice.”
Tracey Wright, Chair of Comms Council UK, added:
“The launch of the second Telecommunications Fraud Charter marks a significant step forward in the fight against fraud in our sector. We are proud to support this initiative, which brings together government and industry to deliver real, lasting change for consumers and businesses alike. As part of the Charter, we commit to continue to release best practice guidance to our membership that will raise standards and reduce opportunities for fraudulent behaviour using voice and telephony. The Charter’s overall message around collaborative data sharing, advanced technology solutions, and unified public messaging will strengthen our collective defences and help disrupt fraudulent activity at scale.
Through my work with Comms Council UK, I have seen first-hand the positive impact of sector-wide collaboration and intelligence sharing. By aligning our efforts through this Charter, whether through joint initiatives on fraud detection or stronger customer protections, we are building a safer, more trusted communications environment for everyone. The Charter sets a clear path for the telecoms sector to lead by example, and we look forward to working alongside our partners to deliver on its commitments and create a future where fraudsters find it harder to succeed.”
