The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said Friday it will monitor online applications and platforms including Lazada and Shopee to ensure consumer protection.
The Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC), an attached agency of DICT, recently launched the Consumer Application Monitoring Systems (CAMS) to watch the performance of online applications on cell phones.
The CAMS enables consumers to identify in real time which applications are performing well. Private companies and government agencies using applications can also identify in real time the performance of their application and improve their services.
“This will be a useful tool to identify the performance and the problem with government applications,” DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy said.
Uy said while people often blame poor online services for connectivity, sometimes the problems are in poor applications.
CICC executive director Alexander Ramos said the CAMS platform would also help educate the public.
“It’s not a warning, but rather it’s a tool. Our objective is to educate the public,” he said.
“People should understand we are not here to put down or to put up with anyone. And, you know, we are here for the public to understand that there are options,” Ramos said.
The monitoring system will be deployed in 100 city locations nationwide, including one at the National Cybercrime Hub.
Ramos said CICC would release to the public regularly the result of their monitoring of applications.
“Definitely all the popular apps will be monitored here as part of the consumer protection of CICC. We are going to monitor the performance until the public gets their money’s worth,” he said.
The project is in collaboration with Mozark Pte Ltd., a leading digital company with offices in Singapore and in the Philippines.