New Delhi: Bharti Airtel has blocked over 3.5 million online fraud attempts in the Delhi-NCR region within 43 days using its AI-powered fraud detection system, as part of its broader digital safety initiative. The rollout comes amid increasing cases of phishing and fake delivery scams across India’s urban centres, with Delhi-NCR witnessing a sharp rise in digital fraud attempts.
Airtel’s network-based AI system scans more than 1 billion URLs daily and blocks suspicious websites within 100 milliseconds. The technology filters malicious links shared through SMS, messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram, social media platforms, emails, and web browsers.
The system automatically scans and intercepts harmful links without any user intervention. When a dangerous link is identified such as a phishing message impersonating a delivery update—the user is redirected to a warning page. The message appears in the user’s preferred language, including Hindi, making it accessible across regions with varying levels of digital literacy.
Delhi-NCR remains one of India’s most digitally connected regions, but this has also made it a hotspot for fraud attempts. Common methods include fake banking alerts, fraudulent courier links, and phishing scams targeting senior citizens, students, and first-time smartphone users.
Airtel’s initiative aims to mitigate these risks by offering passive protection through its core network. The service does not require app downloads or additional settings and is available to all Airtel mobile and broadband users by default.
Beyond Delhi-NCR, Airtel claims the system has blocked over 188,000 malicious links and safeguarded 106 million users nationwide since the launch. However, the company has not disclosed the overall share of blocked links relative to total fraud attempts or any independent audit of its AI platform’s accuracy.
