Safer Internet Day (10^th February) is a global moment to reflect on how we can all stay safer online. As more of our everyday lives move online, keeping people protected from harm including fraud and scams has never been more important.

Mobile networks play a critical role in protecting customers from harm, and the UK’s mobile operators are already blocking billions of scam SMS messages before they ever reach people’s phones. To date, the telecoms industry has blocked 2.7 billion scam SMS messages (2,761,912,183 to be exact).

To shine a light on this work in recognition of Safer Internet Day, Mobile UK has launched a new tracker that will be updated monthly. The tracker will show how many scam SMS messages were blocked during the prior month and how many have been blocked in total to date across UK mobile networks.

In January alone, 97 million scam SMS messages were blocked by mobile operators. By regularly sharing this data, we aim to demonstrate the scale of the problem, the effectiveness of networklevel protections, and the continued investment mobile operators are making to disrupt fraud at source.

How you can help stop scam texts

If you receive a suspicious or scam text message, do not click any links and do not reply.

Instead, report it for free by forwarding the message to 7726. Reporting scam texts to 7726 helps mobile networks identify and block malicious senders more quickly, protecting others from being targeted.

To find out more about how to report suspicious activity, visit here.

‍

‍