Taiwanese tech firm Gogolook offers first anti-fraud platform in Thailand

The platform dubbed “Life Protection Platform” will provide new tools and services to help businesses and consumers increase their protection online as part of its aim to create a global AI- and data-driven anti-fraud network, as well as introduce risk management as a service.

Manwoo Joo, Gogolook’s chief operating officer, said the goal of creating the first anti-fraud platform for Thailand was to protect people from current call and SMS scams as well as be prepared to protect businesses and consumers from within social networking services, Web3 scams and beyond to the metaverse.

“It’s increasingly important to provide the right protection for people from online scams and fraudulent calls and SMS as they impact society as well as each individual case. We must be able to trust our communities and this will help us solve the wider issues," said Manwoo.

To actively prevent the scam, he said the company had launched a number of different tools and services and will be working with local partners over the coming months with the aim of building a trust and protection platform that will bring peace of mind to Thai people from every walk of life.

The platform is another effort of Gogolook to expand and enhance its preventive measures against online and offline scams and fraud, Manwoo said.

With over 100 million global downloads, Whoscall has built the largest crowd-sourced phone database in the region. Through its work to date with the industry-leading unknown caller ID app Whoscall, which identifies unknown calls in real-time and filters out spam calls using AI and its extensive database, Whoscall Gogolook has blocked over 6.4 million fraud calls in Thailand alone from January to May 2022 – a number equivalent to the total fraud calls blocked for the entirety of 2021.

The service is available for free but for those who need more delicate protection, Gogolook provides the premium services option by letting users subscribe to get more advanced features for better protection. The charge starts at THB599 per year. For the first year of the premium service launch, the company expects 5 per cent of total users to avail of the paid service. There are 10 million downloads of the app for free use last year.

Apart from developing new tools, Manwoo said the company is also collaborating with partners to improve protection and recently announced a new strategic partnership with TrueMove H to strengthen the combat against fraud and nuisance calls and SMS.

With the alliance, TrueMove H will be the first major Thai telecommunication carrier to partner with Whoscall to offer an extra layer of protection against the growing problem of spam calls and suspicious SMS for users of TrueMove H via the hotline 9777 in order to stop the cyberthreats.

Gogolook has also teamed up with a number of institutes including the Thai Police Cyber Taskforce, the Taiwan National Police Agency Criminal Investigation Bureau, the Financial Supervisory Service of South Korea, and the Fukuoka city government to fight fraud and ultimately, build a trustworthy communication network across the world.

Manwoo said the company is considering making Thailand Gogolook's headquarters in Southeast Asia. He believes the country has its own strong potential such as infrastructure, talented workforce and active users who eagerly report against fraud.

Titinun Suttinaraphan, country marketing lead of Gogolook, Thailand added that the fight against fraud needs to be fast and done together. Each day new scams and frauds are targeting Thai people, causing an increase in stress and fear.

"It’s important we work together with our partners and users to create a trusting environment and the immunity that can protect us all against becoming a victim. We hope these new tools and services can help people in their everyday fight against frauds and scams,” said Titinun.