Case Explained: Combating Fraud: collaboration, consumer education and law enforcement – Legal Perspective

The rise in fraud and scams is a major and growing concern, prompting stakeholders across the digital ecosystem to step up their efforts. Fraud is defined by the UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) as “the act of gaining a dishonest advantage, often financial, over another person.” A scam, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is “a dishonest plan for making money or gaining an advantage, especially one that involves tricking people.” As many languages do not distinguish between these terms, they are used interchangeably here.

Online fraud is a global and organised criminal threat:Online and ICT-enabled fraud has evolved into industrial-scale criminal operations, often run by transnational organised crime groups targeting victims across borders.  In the UK, fraud already accounts for around 40% of all crimes, largely driven by online methods. This share is expected to grow further due to the transnational nature of crime and the increasing democratisation of AI tools, yet it receives less than 2% of police resources.

The impact of fraud and scams

Fraud undermines trust in the digital economy. Anyone can fall victim to scams. It affects people of all ages, particularly vulnerable and less informed groups. Criminals are increasingly exploiting the human factor through social engineering techniques. For consumers and businesses, this threat can result in financial loss, significant emotional distress, or a loss of trust in digital services, ultimately creating barriers to the adoption of beneficial technologies.

The global financial cost of cybercrime, including fraud, is projected to rise from USD 9.22 trillion in 2024 to USD 15.63 trillion by 2029. Recent research by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance estimates that in the 12 months to October 2025 an estimated USD 442 billion was lost to scams worldwide.

The time for coordinated action is now

The UN Global Summit on Fraud took place on 16–17 March in Vienna. Organised by UN Office on Drugs and Crime and INTERPOL, the Summit featured strong participation from international organisations, governments across regions, and private sector signalling political momentum for the fight against fraud and scams.

During the Summit, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) endorsed both the Call to Action on Combating Fraud -open to governments and intergovernmental organisations- and the Global Public-Private Partnership Framework against Fraud, which is open to governments, IGOs, and all interested stakeholders. The GSMA endorsed the latter alongside 116 other companies, underscoring the need for a united response against scams.

Member States have recognised the need to take coordinated action to combat fraud, a transnational threat. The Call to Action on Combating Fraud sets out principles endorsed by Member States, which, together with INTERPOL, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), IGOs, and stakeholders, commit to 13 actions.

In turn, the Global Public-Private Partnership Framework against Fraud underscores the relevance of partnership, as the foundation for an effective, coordinated response. Built on shared responsibility, it confirms our collective commitment to taking action to prevent and disrupt fraud.

Discussions during the Summit consistently highlighted the new scale and complexity of the challenge, with broad recognition that effective responses require close coordination across sectors, actors, and borders.

Industry commitment and expertise in the fight against fraud

Industry is investing heavily in prevention: companies across sectors are deploying AI-driven detection, advanced authentication, intelligence sharing, and consumer education to combat fraud.  As GSMA signals in its Fraud and Scam Report, to address the issue, private stakeholders invest significant resources in identifying, filtering and blocking fraud.

As operators, we are committed to protecting our customers and determined to take decisive action against fraud. Several recent examples were showcased during Mobile World Congress 2026, highlighting the use of Open Gateway in collaboration with Telefónica. These included initiatives such as How Bankinter Is Using Network APIs to Fight Digital Fraud in Spain and Itaú & ZapSign Scaling Digital Identity with Network APIsin Brazil, demonstrating how network capabilities can be leveraged to strengthen fraud prevention at scale.

Recently, Virgin Media O2 reported that the use of AI has enabled it to detect and flag over one billion suspected scam and spam calls, significantly enhancing protection for its customers.

Currently, Telefónica in Spain blocks around 500,000 fraudulent calls per day. In addition, a new service was launched on 16 March to warn users of potential unwanted calls, based on predictive models that analyse spamming behaviour – “Llamadas Molestas.” These are just a few recent examples of initiatives that demonstrate the industry’s strong commitment.

Policy recommendations for combating fraud

No single sector can tackle fraud alone: fraud networks operate across jurisdictions and industries; effective solutions require coordinated action between governments, law enforcement, and the private sector.

To deploy advanced tools effectively, companies need both flexibility and timely access to relevant data – without disproportionate restrictive data protection policies hindering this fight. In this regard, European telecom providers continue to struggle with the outdated  ePrivacy framework, which is ill‑suited to today’s digital realities.

Ultimately, to combat fraud and tackle this transnational challenge, the following measures should be prioritised:

• Foster wide ecosystem collaboration. Enable rapid intelligence sharing, coordinated responses, and agile public-private partnerships to match the speed of evolving scams.
• Incentive innovation over strict regulation. Legal clarity is essential to facilitate collaboration and information sharing among ecosystem stakeholders. Poorly designed regulation can hinder the scaling of innovative technical solutions. Proactive prevention should be supported through flexible, principle-based frameworks.
• Consumer education and effective reporting mechanisms. Combine digital literacy campaigns with simple reporting tools that turn consumer alerts into actionable intelligence.
• Strengthen cross-border enforcement. Enhance international cooperation frameworks and legal processes, streamline cross-border data request mechanisms, and improve operational coordination to target organised crime networks, their infrastructure, and financial flows, while ensuring adequate allocation of resources.

The fight against fraud requires addressing the entire value chain, as well as prioritising user awareness and law enforcement. Cross-sector collaboration is crucial for achieving collective goals and requires a flexible, pragmatic and future-proof approach that avoids overly prescriptive measures, given the dynamic nature of fraud.

Find attached the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) cross-industry paper on Preventing online and ICT-enabled fraud globally and the GSMA recommendations strengthening the global fight against fraud.