Govt launches ‘Chakshu’ portal to fight frauds through spam calls, messages

The government on Monday launched the ‘Chakshu’ facility on the Sanchar Saathi portal, an initiative empowering citizens to proactively report suspected fraud in communication.

Union Minister of Communications, Railways, Electronics & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, launched the portal, saying the government has been persistently making efforts to check cyber-frauds under the Secure India project at three levels — national, organisational and individual.

Chakshu facilitates citizens to report suspected fraud communication received over calls, SMS or WhatsApp messages with the intention of defrauding people, like KYC expiry or updating bank account details, payment wallets, SIM, gas connections etc.

“We firmly believe that critical issues like cyber frauds require all the stakeholders to work together to truly make an impact on the ground. Today’s initiative would help channelise our citizens to come on a single platform led by the government and actively contribute by sharing knowledge to help prevent such undesired and malicious activities,” said Lt. Gen. S.P. Kochhar, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).

Along with Chakshu, the government also launched the Department of Telecommunications’s (DoT) ‘Digital Intelligence Platform’ for coordination among the stakeholders to curb the misuse of telecom resources in cyber-crime and financialfrauds.

(With inputs from IANS)