Hong Kong telecom watchdog tightens rules to combat phone scams
Hong Kong's telecom regulator has strengthened rules against phone scams, leading to a 50% drop in suspended numbers. Measures include AI monitoring, mandatory caller ID, and a new offence for SIM card misuse.
Hong Kong’s telecom regulator has reported a sharp drop in phone scam activity after tightening rules on telecoms firms. The number of local phone numbers suspended each month for suspected scam activity fell to about 5,700 between January and August 2026, down from about 11,400 in the same period of 2025, the Office of the Communications Authority said in a written reply to the Legislative Council on 7 October 2026.
The reduction followed amendments to the Code of Practice for Managing Scam Calls and Scam Messages, which took effect in December 2025. The code, first introduced in April 2023, requires telecoms operators to monitor call and message patterns on their networks and suspend numbers that show suspicious behaviour, such as making or sending large volumes of calls or messages in a short time. The amended code tightened the criteria for identifying suspicious patterns, the authority said.
Operators now use artificial intelligence and big-data tools to detect anomalies. The regulator also said it had required all operators to provide call-management services or filtering apps, with some offering free services to customers aged 60 or above. Since May 2023, operators have been required to play voice or text warnings for incoming international calls that start with “+852”. Since December 2024, calls from newly activated local prepaid SIM cards trigger a recorded warning that the call is from a new prepaid card.
The regulator said it had also set up dedicated number identification for government departments and public bodies, including the 1823 government hotline, the police anti-fraud hotline 18222, and Hospital Authority numbers beginning with 18285 or 18286, which were launched in mid-2026.
Police have operated the ScAdvisor search tool since September 2022 and the ScAdvisor App since February 2023. The app, which gained scam-call and scam-website alerts in February 2024, had recorded more than 1.28 million downloads by end-August 2026, issuing at least 410,000 scam-call alerts and over 1 million scam-website alerts. The search tool had logged more than 16 million searches.
Under licence conditions introduced in 2022, operators must cooperate with law enforcement to block or suspend numbers and websites suspected of fraud. By end-August 2026, operators had blocked or suspended more than 12,000 web links and over 17,000 local and non-local numbers. They had also blocked more than 8.9 million incoming calls starting with “+852”.
The government is reviewing the mandatory SIM-card registration system and plans to lower the cap on prepaid cards per individual and create a new offence criminalising the unauthorised use of another person’s identity to register SIM cards. Details will be released for public consultation in due course, the regulator said.