Hiya Powers O2’s Network-Level Fraud Call Blocking, Expected to Stop 3 Million Scam Calls a Week

Free service blocks fraudulent calls before customers’ phones ring, with no app download required

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hiya, a global leader in AI-native voice security, today announced that its technology is powering O2's rollout of fraud call blocking in the UK. Moving beyond warning customers about potentially fraudulent calls to actively blocking them, the service is expected to block more than 3 million fraudulent calls each week before they reach O2 customers' phones.

O2's upgrade builds on its existing work with Hiya. Since the beginning of 2024, O2 has used Hiya-powered technology to flag more than 1.6 billion suspected scam and spam calls. This rich dataset provides the foundation for Hiya’s AI-assisted algorithms to monitor the network for nuisance and malicious callers, continuously refining its detection capabilities in response to customer reports and new analysis of call behavior. For the calls flagged as fraud, O2 is now blocking them at the network level, instead of alerting subscribers when they ring.

“The next level of protection from a scam call is to stop it before their phone rings. O2 is doing exactly that, using the intelligence already inside its network provided by Hiya. Our technology analyzes over 28 billion call activities every month to identify fraudulent callers, so we can spare customers millions of potentially harmful interruptions—and they don’t have to download anything. That's a meaningful step forward for O2 subscribers , which we’re proud to take in partnership with Virgin Media O2.”

-Alex Algard, CEO and Founder, Hiya

Murray Mackenzie, Director of Fraud Prevention at Virgin Media O2, said: “Picking up the phone shouldn’t feel like a gamble, with customers left second-guessing whether they can trust the person at the other end of the line. That’s why we’re stepping up our defenses, evolving our AI scam call detection service from flagging to blocking fraudulent callers, stopping that first ring in real time. With over 3 million calls expected to be blocked each week, we’re helping keep more Brits safe from scams than ever before.”

A trial of the solution earlier this fall revealed the impact it has already made on customer protection. During testing, data showed scammers repeatedly trying to reach the same customers, seemingly unaware they had been cut off. 60% of blocked calls were repeat attempts made within a minute of the first. Consequently, a number labeled as fraudulent placed three times as many calls after being blocked as before. Each of those calls went nowhere, costing fraudsters time they could otherwise use to target new victims.

About Hiya

Hiya is the AI-native voice security platform inside many of the world's biggest mobile networks, including AT&T, Telefónica, O2, Rogers, and Orange. Hiya analyzes 28 billion calls a month, more than anyone else on earth, reaching 550 million subscribers across 40+ countries. Only Hiya protects the entire call, identifying and connecting legitimate calls, stopping spam before the phone rings, and catching AI-generated scams mid-call, for every subscriber on the network with nothing to download. Ten years in, Hiya is the partner operators trust to build the safest network, because the safest network wins. Learn more at hiya.com.