The Union Minister for Communications, Electronics & IT, and Railways, Ashwini Vaishnaw has launched Sanchar Saathi for the people of our country. The Sanchar Saathi portal aims to offer many services related to telecom and mobile communications. The Sanchar Saarthi service is now available at https://sancharsaathi.gov.in. The Union Minister highlighted three major things that are being implemented with the launch of Sanchar Saathi.
The first change implemented is Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) which will help people to find and disable their stolen and lost mobile phones anywhere in the country.
The second change implemented is Know Your Mobile (KYM). This change helps people to log in using their mobile numbers and check and verify the number of mobile connections issued under their name. This new feature will also help people to block all the unwanted connections issued in their name.
The third change implemented is Artificial Intelligence & Facial Recognition (ASTR) which helps people with SIM subscriber verification. This newly launched AI-based technology helps in analyzing mobile connections and also includes several features such as IMEI-based phone theft information for law enforcement agencies. This portal will prove to be a great help to the people who wish to block any number associated with a particular IMEI and also helps in tracking stolen and lost mobile phones. The technology also alerts consumers if an identical IMEI number has already been used to buy a mobile phone.
Artificial intelligence implemented to identify fraud cases is a very main component of the Sanchar Saathi portal. The artificial intelligence tool which was developed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Param Siddhi supercomputer has examined 87 crore of mobile connections out of which 40 lakh were suspected numbers and 36 lakh were deactivated mobile numbers and more than 40,000 were Point Of Sales devices that were actively involved in fraud activities. It was noted that there were several cases where multiple connections were issued on single-person images but with different names.
There was a case where 6800 connections were issued using the same subscriber picture with the same face but different names. Another case was noted where 5300 connections were issued using the same subscriber picture with the same face but different names
The Sanchar Saathi portal and its new implementations are specifically designed to increase and enhance transparency, security, and accountability in the telecom industry. It also people to protect their mobile phone connections and minimize fraud activities taking place using technology and artificial intelligence.
