Hiya will provide customers of VMO2 with an additional layer of fraud protection and will run alongside its existing firewall technology which has prevented more than 89 million spam texts from reaching customers in 2023.
Phone spam and fraud remain challenges for telco carriers, Hiya says. In the UK alone, 28% of unknown calls were spam according to the latest Hiya study – with nearly 10% of those being fraud calls.
“In the fight against fraud, we’re committed to rolling out the latest technology to help keep our customers safe,” said Murray Mackenzie, director of fraud at Virgin Media O2.
“From AI tools to help us block fraudulent calls, to services that help identify callers before a customer has even picked up the phone, our extensive partnership with Hiya will see us continue to improve on our existing measures and give customers additional protection from spam and fraudsters.”
Hiya’s Hiya Protect spam and fraud-fighting tool uses Adaptive AI to analyse call number behaviour to determine whether to flag the call as suspected spam or block it as fraud.
Users can build custom detection models using their own data.
“Carriers around the world are wrestling with how to prevent phone spam and scams, and protect the reputation of business customers,” said Kush Parikh, president of Hiya.
“Hiya is doing its part to restore confidence in voice calling by aligning with leaders like Virgin Media O2.”