Enhancing responsibility for consumer protection in the digital space.
By Google News Category Consumer Rights ·
With the development of e-commerce and the increasing prevalence of online transactions, sophisticated scams are threatening consumers' assets and personal data. To strengthen confidence in the digital economy, it is necessary to enhance supervision, transparency of information, and improve the responsibility of organizations and businesses to protect buyers.
Online shopping and cashless payments are becoming increasingly popular, offering convenience to consumers. However, along with these conveniences come increasingly difficult-to-identify security risks. Scammers are constantly changing their tactics, from impersonating websites, bank messages, and shipping companies to distributing links containing malware to steal information and hijack accounts.
Worryingly, artificial intelligence ( AI ) is also being exploited to create fake images, voices, and identities, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between real and fake.
On September 8-9, the Ministry of Public Security warned of 25 online scam scenarios, categorized into 5 groups: impersonating agencies and organizations; exploiting AI, Deepfake, and DeepVoice; financial investment and recruitment scams; online sales fraud; and data theft and device hijacking.
The scale of losses from fraudulent activities is also growing. On October 25th, the Ministry of Public Security announced the dismantling of a fraud ring operating through the AI Livestream platform Tatao Live, prosecuting 7 defendants. The amount of money victims deposited into the system was determined to be up to 404 billion VND, while authorities have initially recovered over 8.6 billion VND.
According to Nguyen Lam Thanh, a representative of TikTok Vietnam, scam groups are constantly creating sophisticated scenarios, making it easy for users to fall into their traps if they lack identification information. This situation not only causes direct damage but also erodes trust in technology applications, affecting a healthy business environment.
One of the factors making scams increasingly difficult to prevent is the exploitation of personal data to create personalized scenarios. According to Nguyen Quynh Anh, Vice Chairwoman of the National Competition Commission, information that needs protection includes not only names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses, but also shopping and transaction history.
When order data, addresses, and transaction times are leaked, perpetrators can impersonate sellers, delivery personnel, or customer service representatives to gain trust.
Meanwhile, consumers engaging in online transactions are already at a disadvantage due to the difficulty in verifying the seller's identity, the quality of goods, and the authenticity of information. If transaction conditions lack transparency, determining responsibility, requesting exchanges or refunds when disputes arise also becomes difficult.
Based on this reality, Nguyen Quang Huy, CEO of the Finance and Banking Faculty (Nguyen Trai University), believes that consumer protection should be implemented from the prevention stage, rather than focusing only on handling incidents after they occur. Along with that, information about products, sellers, and transaction conditions must be transparent.
Banks, businesses, and platforms need to proactively control risks throughout the transaction process.
Strengthen enforcement against violations and warn the community.
An online transaction typically involves multiple parties, from the…
Originally published by Google News Category Consumer Rights
