ComReg has published updates on its international cooperation programme to combat scams, its SMS Sender ID Registry and key statistics arising as a consequence of its scam call interventions.
International cooperation
ComReg signed Memoranda of Understanding with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in May 2025 and with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in August 2025.
Both the ACMA and the CRTC are at the forefront in the fight to protect consumers of electronic communications services against scams. ComReg’s current set of scam interventions has benefited from the sharing of intelligence and experiences in combatting scam calls and texts with both the ACMA and the CRTC.
SMS Sender ID Registry
SMS scams erode trust in SMS communications with harm to consumers and businesses in Ireland estimated at approximately €115 million every year. In June 2025, ComReg introduced an SMS Sender ID Registry to help protect the Application-to-Person (A2P) SMS channel from scams. From July 2025, unregistered SMS Sender IDs were modified to “Likely Scam”.
While the majority of industry parties have now resolved their technical problems, there are a number of Participating Aggregators with outstanding issues. Consequently, ComReg has deferred the commencement of the blocking phase of scam SMS messages until it can be satisfied that these matters are addressed. In the meantime, ComReg will maintain the SMS ‘Likely Scam’ over labelling modification.
ComReg’s Sender ID Registry is very much in demand; to date, 17,064 Sender IDs have been registered by over 12,704 organisations.
Scam call interventions
Four voice interventions to combat scam calls are now in place, with over 100 million scam calls now blocked. These are scam calls that otherwise would have been received by consumers bringing with them concern, worry and the danger of significant financial loss. A fifth intervention – Voice Firewall – is currently in development and will be launched by voice operators in October this year.
There is more to do and ComReg will continue to work with industry to ensure that each intervention is implemented on time and to specification. ComReg is grateful to those industry members that have now done so.
(Source of Graph: ComReg analysis of operator data)
The volume of blocked calls can vary, rising and falling in line with scammer campaign activity which can be variable (e.g. over 13 million calls were blocked in July 2025 alone). For more information, read the document here.
