Jakarta, Nov. 14 -- Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs has called on mobile network operators to urgently enhance consumer protection systems, as phone and SMS-based fraud continues to surge, causing substantial financial losses nationwide.

"Operators must safeguard their customers, just as the government must protect Indonesians through sound policy," said Director General of the Digital Ecosystem Edwin Hidayat Abdullah during a press briefing in Jakarta on Friday.

He revealed that the ministry will soon issue a formal directive requiring telecom providers to develop anti-scam infrastructure-particularly to combat spam calls that use number masking, a technique that hides the caller's identity.

"In the near futu...