Malaysian police act against online gambling promoters
News on 8 Nov 2016
News on 8 Nov 2016
Malaysian police and communications authorities are collaborating to shut down online gambling promoters using sms channels to attract gamblers, according to the Bernama news agency.
After receiving 1,161 complaints about unsolicited messages promoting online gambling, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission Minister Datuk Seri Dr Salleh Said Keruak took steps to gather information, identify relevant details and share the information with the police for further investigations.
“Online gambling activities are regulated under the Common Gambling Houses Act 1953 under the jurisdiction of the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM), the minister said in response to a parliamentary question Monday.
“However cooperation between MCMC and PDRM is already established in efforts to curb online gambling, including aspects of joint monitoring, detection, information sharing, digital forensics, termination of phone numbers and blocking online gambling websites.”
This collaboration had resulted in the mandatory disconnection of 12,449 phone numbers up to end September, the minister revealed, explaining that Section 263(2) of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 allows the authorities to instruct service providers to terminate the phone numbers involved in distributing gambling related SMS content.
The minister revealed that analysis of the sms messages indicated that those responsible were not targeting specific individual users, but worked on a spam and mass distribution strategy to random phone numbers without knowing the identity of the registered users or whether these phone numbers were active.
“MCMC also cooperate with telecommunications service providers in tracking down the spread of such SMS to protect the privacy of users, and service providers have also provided a screening system to block the transmission of SMS promoting online gambling activities,” he said, adding that the anti-sms tactics adopted by the authorities had resulted in a reduction in the number of complaints from the public.
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission has provided five complaint channels for users to lodge complaints via walk-in, telephone, website, Whatsapp and email, the minister said.
