Meta partners with the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange (AFCX) and Australian banking sector to combat scams
We know that scams are a major concern for Australians as they are for us, and the impact of these crimes can be devastating.
Scammers often diversify their approaches and target multiple apps and services, making sure that each company — from social media, private messaging, email, telecom providers, banks, dating apps, and others can only see and counter a narrow piece of the broader scams campaign.
The same scam will often cut across multiple industries and use a number of tactics ranging from taking over social media or bank accounts to tricking people into fraudulent financial transactions. In these scenarios, each company has a limited view into the scam and stopping scammers requires each of us to collaborate in order to put these puzzle pieces together to protect consumers.
This is why we are actively working across the wider scam eco-system with government, law enforcement and our partners in the tech and financial industry to fight scams.
Today, Meta and the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange (AFCX), the primary industry group for the coordination against financial cybercrime, announced the pilot and initial results of the Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (FIRE) via the AFCX Intel Loop in Australia.
FIRE is a dedicated scam reporting channel between Meta and eligible financial institutions, and enables banks to share information about known scams directly with Meta to help combat scams that target both social media and banks. Based on these reports Meta investigates and then shares aggregated information with the banks that identifies scam trends and content that Meta was able to take down. FIRE helps banks and Meta share information about scams and put the puzzle pieces together to better protect people using their services.
Meta began the FIRE pilot with the AFCX Intel Loop in April 2024 and following promising results, intends to further improve the program. Between April and May, 102 reports were provided by the AFCX Intel Loop, enabling Meta to remove over 9,000 spam Pages and over 8,000 AI-generated celeb bait scams across Facebook and Instagram.
Through the exchange of information related to scam activities, Meta aims to investigate, take appropriate action, and raise awareness of scammers who operate across platforms and jurisdictions, as well as drive improvements in its products and detection at global scale.
From David Agranovich, Policy Director, Global Threat Disruption at Meta
“Meta has an important responsibility to counter scams that target Australians on our apps. In addition to investing in our own tools and technology we are working with government and industry partners to fight this scourge. Scams often cut across multiple industries, and the AFCX have been an invaluable partner to help identify and take action against scams targeting Australians.”
From David Pegley, Managing Director, AFCX
“This trial shows sharing and acting on trusted information can help to remove a meaningful volume of scams from social media. The AFCX is pleased to have partnered with Meta in this initiative and welcomes Meta’s continued participation in the Intel Loop.”
From James Roberts, General Manager of Group Fraud, CommBank
“CommBank welcomes Meta’s collaboration in receiving anti-scam intelligence via the Intel Loop and encourages all industry players to accelerate participation. Big tech, telcos and banks all play a part in helping to protect Australians. By collaborating and sharing intelligence through the Intel Loop, together we can help make Australia less attractive for scammers.”
Shaq Johnson, Head of Customer Protection, ANZ
“With scammers operating with more sophistication than ever before, we must work across industries to continue to take the fight to cybercriminals. We are pleased to work with Meta, the AFCX and others in our industry through the Intel Loop, so we can better share timely and actionable data to better help protect Australians and disrupt criminal networks.”
Our partnership with the AFCX and banks is an important part of our fight against scams. However it doesn’t mean the work is over, and it represents another step in the right direction to give us a clearer picture of how scammers operate and how we can evolve our strategies to increase protections for Australian consumers. We will continue to iterate and improve FIRE as we work with our partners to find the most effective information to share with one another and to scale this program further.
Other ways Meta fights scams
FIRE builds on the tools and initiatives Meta already has in place to combat scams, which includes a combination of technology, including automated enforcement, machine learning techniques, and expert investigations.
In the second quarter of 2024, our systems removed 1.2 billion fake accounts and 322 million pieces of spam content from Facebook globally. Of that content, 99.7% of fake accounts and 97.4 % of pieces of spam content were actioned by Meta before they were reported.
In addition to proactive enforcement, Meta commenced the rollout of a new risk-based advertiser phone verification initiative globally — including Australia — in June 2024. Under this initiative, new advertisers may now be required to have a verified phone number associated with their ad account before publishing ads.
Consumer awareness is also vital, and Meta has run numerous scams education campaigns, including a new WhatsApp scam awareness campaign launched in August 2024. This campaign is being run across Facebook and Instagram to educate Australians on how they can identify and protect themselves from investment, employment and romance scams. We are planning additional anti-scam awareness campaigns in the coming months.
