Don’t be surprised when you no longer see the full name of a user’s account when sending money on GCash.
MANILA, Philippines – GCash has modified the way users’ account names appear on the mobile wallet app, with some letters being omitted. This comes after numerous reports of personalized text scams and spam messages.
“In the past, the name of the person was seen as an added measure of convenience and helped verify that the recipient was correct,” GCash chief information security officer Mark Frogoso said.
However, with the rising number of scam messages, Frogoso said it is important “to strike a balance between customer experience and strengthening measures to keep user information safe from unscrupulous individuals”, and that the latest update of censoring users’ names is an added layer of customer protection.
“We have been working closely with the National Privacy Commission (NPC) on the issue of text scams with names. We wish to assure our customers that our systems and infrastructure remain secure and there is no incidence of any data leak or breach,” Frogoso added, reassuring GCash’s over 60 million users.
During the Senate investigation on the increasing number of text scams and spam messages, Mark Anthony Amurao, advocacy lawyer for GCash, said the move is “for the purpose of allaying the fears of our citizens that their names will no longer be scraped or harvested.”
Amurao also said this update is in an “experimental phase” as of the moment, as they are yet to see if it is more beneficial than when not hiding the names of recipients to prevent inadvertent sending to the wrong GCash accounts.
GCash also reminded its users that it will never ask their users’ account details via email, nor will it send rewards through email, and that clicking on any links within these fraudulent messages should be avoided at all times.