On 15 June 2022, a draft law on combating abuse of electronic communications appeared on the website of the Government Legislation Centre. Due to the increase in criminal activity involving the use of telecommunications services, the government decided to strengthen cooperation between providers of these services and public authorities. The draft specifies what the prohibited practices consist in and provides for fines and even imprisonment for their commission.
The draft prohibits abuse of electronic communications in the form of artificial traffic, smishing and spoofing. Artificial traffic consists of sending or receiving calls to be registered by billing systems and not to use a service. This causes losses for network operators, who incur significant costs from having to pay for the use of the network by a fake operator. Smishing, on the other hand, already poses a threat to the users themselves. Sending SMS messages, in which the sender impersonates another entity (usually an institution enjoying relative trust) to persuade the recipient of the message to perform a specific action, e.g., to submit personal data. The same practice, but using voice calls, is referred to as spoofing.
Telecom operators are to be obliged to actively prevent abuse of electronic communications, as they will be responsible for taking appropriate technical and organisational measures for this purpose, as well as for informing the relevant authorities if any form of abuse occurs. The project provides for cooperation with the police, the President of the Office of Electronic Communications as well as with the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT NASK). The latter, after receiving information about the occurrence of abuse, publishes on its website a template of the message used by fraudsters. Telecommunications service providers are obliged to block any messages with content matching the template.
Fraudulent electronic communication may be punished by a fine of up to 3% of the company’s revenue in the previous calendar year, and in the case of natural persons up to 300% of monthly salary. Undertaking abuse for the purpose of gaining financial benefit or causing damage to another person is also punishable by imprisonment from 3 months to 5 years. Telecommunications service providers who fail to fulfil their legal obligations may also be threatened with fines.