O2 ups the ante

A free service with no app necessary, designed to block scam calls before your mobile rings, is being rolled out across the UK on the O2 network.

Hiya, a world leader in AI voice security, has just announced it is powering the O2 rollout.

This is the first of its kind and completely eclipses the warnings we get today about potential fraud, to blocking fraud before the phone calls. This is expected to stop 3 million calls in the UK.

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Hiya has been working with O2 since 2024 and is responsible for flagging 1.6 billion suspected scam and spam calls.

This data is the base for Hiya’s AI assisted algorithm to assess for malicious callers, it will additionally keep refining its actions based on analysis of  call behaviour, customer reports will provide the base for AI scrutiny. This now means O2 is now blocking flagged fraud calls at a network level.

“The next level of protection from a scam call is to stop it before their phone rings," says Hiya CEO Alex Algard.

"Our technology analyses over 28 billion call activities every month to identify fraudulent callers, so we can spare customers millions of potentially harmful interruptions - and they don’t have to download anything.”

This article was created using information sourced via Morning Star, Virgin Media and Business Wire.

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