(ECNS) -- China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Xinhuanet.com, Dianhua.cn, Best Tone Information Service Co and 12321.cn jointly announced the launch of a credible phone number data center on Tuesday, as part of efforts to fight spam messages and phone fraud, Beijing Youth Daily reported.
The data center will integrate resources to set up a phone number information authentication and service platform to safeguard Internet security.
According to data from Dianhua.cn, in 2015 alone there were 29 billion fraudulent calls across the country, 80 million a day on average. Among all phone calls made in 2015, 36.27 percent were alleged by users to be fraudulent, 19.48 percent from salespeople, and 12.55 percent marked by users to be harassment.
While fraud and harassment calls together accounted for 48.82 percent of the total number of calls placed last year, 90 percent of them were made via cell phones and fixed-line phones, of which nearly 60 percent were placed from cell phones, Dianhua.cn said.
With rampant phone fraud throughout the country, authorities have mandated a real-name registration rule on all phone numbers.
Also, many of China's large companies have joined a credible phone number service alliance initiated by Dianhua.cn, Xinhuanet.com and Best Tone, the paper said.
The latest move marks a new step in pushing forward the establishment of a credit system for public institutions and all enterprises through official channels to further reduce telecommunications fraud.
