How Spark helps protect you online

At Spark, we play an important role in helping protect our customers from the ever growing and evolving threats they face online. We make significant investments in new protection tools, provide education on good online safety practices, and collaborate across relevant sectors to help prevent New Zealanders falling victim to scams and cyber threats, or being exposed to abhorrent illegal material.

How we help protect our customers from scams

Spark takes active steps to help prevent our customers falling victim to increasingly sophisticated scams. Because we cannot stop scams from occurring, we are focussed on blocking them where we can, and empowering our customers to be vigilant.

What we do on our network

• We work to limit the number of scam calls our customers receive by monitoring unusual calling activity and blocking offending numbers.
• We have invested in an automated monitoring system that helps us identify unusual outgoing SMS traffic patterns from our network, so we can investigate and block offending accounts. This has led to a significant reduction in scam SMSs sent via our network.
• We are implementing an SMS scam firewall which will automatically detect and block a large number of scam texts from entering Spark’s network, further reducing the amount of scam texts our customers receive.
• We block many SMSs containing known ‘bad URLs’, to prevent customers inadvertently clicking on the links, including websites impersonating New Zealand’s banks.
• We take action on scams reported to us by customers via our own reporting services and the DIA’s 7726 reporting service.
• We help prevent people falling victim to fraudulent Spark impersonations via email by adopting a technology that shows either our trademarked logo or a blue verification tick in the sender section of some email platforms when the communications are legitimate.

How we work with other businesses and law enforcement

• We work closely with other telcos through the Telecommunications Forum (TCF) to share information about confirmed scams so that numbers being used for scams can be blocked across all networks.
• We have a verification system in place with other mobile operators to help prevent number porting fraud. This is where a scammer asks for a mobile number to be ported to a different provider, in an attempt to gain control of it and impersonate the user.
• We work with our industry to stop fraudulent overseas calls disguised as New Zealand’s banks from reaching New Zealanders.
• The TCF hosts what’s called the Fraud and Revenue Assurance Working Party, which connects the telco industry with organisations such as the New Zealand Police, CERT, DIA and banks to share information on the latest fraud trends, as well as new prevention technologies and tactics.
• Where possible, our security and fraud teams investigate scam incidents and work with law enforcement to identify and shut down scamming operations.

Tools we provide for our customers

• We educate and alert customers to fraudulent activity – through our ‘Keep safe from scams’ webpage, our social media channels, direct customer communications, and via our customer service teams.
• We sell a landline product called Call Screen, a cordless home phone containing technology that can effectively help customers protect themselves from scam calls.
• We provide McAfee Security Standard on eligible broadband plans, which helps to protect customers from scams, viruses, and other threats.
• We partner with Netsafe to develop and disseminate scam education material, such as brochures.

How we help protect our customers from cyber risks

Find out how we help protect customers from cyber risks here: How we manage security

How we help protect our customers from illegal child abuse material

Child sexual abuse material is abhorrent and illegal, and a growing issue in Aotearoa and globally. To help protect our customers from this content, and to help stop its dissemination, we implement a range of blocking measures on our network and provide additional tools for our customers to utilise on their own devices.

What we do on our network and in our business

• We participate in the Department of Internal Affairs’ (DIA) Digital Child Exploitation Filter
• We have an additional agreement with the DIA to block further abuse material on our network
• We are a member of the Internet Watch Foundation, blocking websites on its URL lists
• We are a signatory to the 11 Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
• Our charitable arm, Spark Foundation, supports community initiatives and organisations that help whānau to navigate online safety concerns – such as its work alongside The Light Project, which provides parents, teachers, tamariki and rangatahi with the support and tools they need to navigate the challenges presented by online porn.

If you’d like more information on blocking objectional websites, visit: https://www.spark.co.nz/help/privacy-and-safety/how-we-manage-privacy/website-block

Tools we provide our customers

We provide all our broadband customers with access to Net Shield, which helps to block harmful content and enables safe searching. Spark customers can turn the Net Shield service on and off as regularly as needed, by logging into their account on the Spark website.