IT was the National Privacy Commission that first raised the red flag of warning about “smishing” – a contraption of the words short messaging service (SMS) and phishing.
New words come into the popular vocabulary more from evil things rather than good. Such is the case of this word smishing — the fraudulent practice of sending text messages which were made to appear to be from reputable companies in order to deceive individuals to reveal their personal information, such as passwords or credit card numbers.
Included in the definition of smishing is the evil practice of stalking someone, using the victim’s cell phone number copied from the logbook of visitors that became ubiquitous because of the need for contact tracing in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘Now that the government has recognized the evil that smishing brings, it behooves these concerned authorities to solve the problem which they themselves created when they imposed loose regulations such as use of logbooks without the necessary safety nets.’
In the early days of the epidemic, when people were still very observant of health protocols and contact tracing, a young lady was almost raped by a stalker who fished her cell phone number from a logbook of a commercial establishment.
It certainly is late in the day now, but the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) announced it is studying the possibility of banning the use of logbooks as a means for contact tracing after reports of smishing.
DILG Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya, the department’s spokesman, said they are coordinating with the National Privacy Commission to decide on a new policy on the use of visitors’ logbooks.
Malaya said that the fraudsters gather the cell phone numbers, names and other personal information in logbooks that are required to be filled up before entering establishments like barber shops, banks and malls. The DILG official suggested that as a counter move, the establishments should provide separate forms or accept contact tracing applications like the StaySafe app.
Now that the government has recognized the evil that smishing brings, it behooves these concerned authorities to solve the problem which they themselves created when they imposed loose regulations such as use of logbooks without the necessary safety nets.
