The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently approved ten companies to launch a pilot number protection service business, and allocated 700 special number resources to relevant companies.
The number protection service business refers to a business entrusted by Internet platform companies such as food delivery and online ride-hailing companies to allocate temporary phone numbers to individual users to replace real mobile phone numbers to reduce the risk of user number leakage. If the user checks the number protection service when placing an order, the communication with the delivery person or online ride-hailing driver will be completed with a 15-digit dedicated number starting with 700, and the real mobile phone numbers of the communicating parties will not be displayed to each other.
According to the requirements of the "Notice on Launching the Pilot Number Protection Service Business" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the first 10 companies have obtained application platform provider qualifications and have been approved to use 700 special number resources as compliance intermediate numbers. They will conduct pilot exploration of the number protection service business in take-out, online ride-hailing and other scenarios. On the basis of pilot exploration, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will gradually promote the number protection service business to cover more scenarios and more enterprises.
700 number builds a “firewall” for personal mobile phone numbers
It is understood that the number protection service business is also called the intermediate number business. The pilot implementation of intermediate numbers starting with 700 is to more effectively prevent and control telecommunications network fraud and strengthen the prevention and control of commercial marketing calls.
Zhang Dakun, director of the Technology and Standards Research Institute of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, said that for users, the real mobile phone number does not need to be printed on the receipt or stored in an unfamiliar terminal, which reduces the risk of personal information leakage; users can judge that the number protection service has been used when they see a 15-digit call starting with 700, and the incoming call is marked with "takeaway, online ride-hailing" and other purposes, making users feel more confident when answering the call.
Zhang Dakun said that in order to ensure that users are not disturbed, the temporary number will become invalid after a period of time after the order of the intermediate number starting with 700, leaving no long-term contact channel.
At present, the average daily order volume of my country's number protection service business exceeds 350 million, and 700 dedicated numbers are planned, which can be clearly distinguished from mobile phone numbers in form and facilitate user identification. In terms of quantity, they can meet the hundreds of billions of code number resource needs in scenarios such as express delivery, takeout, and online ride-hailing in the future. The "Notice on Carrying out the Pilot Number Protection Service Business" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology sets up the pilot preparation stage and transition stage. After the pilot transition phase is over, all 700 dedicated numbers will be used to carry out number protection service business.
AI empowerment creates a new number protection service model
The reporter learned from the first batch of selected pilot companies that compared with the traditional intermediate number business in the past, this time the 700 number protection service business adopts a new network and technical architecture, and at the same time applies AI technology to service scenarios to create a new number protection service model.
Yao Lei, general manager of the platform operation department of China Telecom Digital Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd., said that in terms of personal information protection, the real mobile phone numbers of ordinary users are encrypted and stored throughout the entire process, and the one-number mechanism is strictly implemented. At the same time, communication behaviors are traced throughout the entire process, so that every number, every order, and every link can be traced and verified.
The relevant person in charge of a pilot company in Guangzhou told reporters that they began to launch the research and development of the number protection service business platform in September last year, and promoted the joint debugging of the entire network. At present, they have taken the lead in opening the test call of the 700 number, and have the conditions for the entire network to be launched.
