The Southern African Fraud Prevention Service (SAFPS) is working on a system for South Africans to report scams, secure their personal information, and scan websites for vulnerabilities.
This comes after SAFPS stats revealed there was a 600% increase in incidents reported by its members in 2022 compared to 2018.
Called “Yima”, the system will help South Africans learn to identify scams and protect themselves online.
The centrepiece of the Yima website will be a reporting system for South Africans to submit any scam incidents or suspicious activity to the SAFPS. “These reports will be collated and shared with law enforcement for investigation,” the SAFPS said.
This will be interesting to see in practice, because although the SA POPI Act is very far-reaching, not a single person has been prosecuted and fined/jailed under it. The same goes for legislation around SMS and spam callers. We are great at legislating and announcing measures, but in practice the execution often falls through the floor. So let’s see how it works after it launches. It is certainly something that is needed.