NPCI has denied all the claims made in the FASTag scam video, which says that scammers are using a digital watch to scam FASTag and steal money.
A FASTag scam viral video has allegedly put the FASTag ecosystem in question. However, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has issued a clarification dismissing all these claims. NPCI has released a statement saying NETC FASTag ecosystem is not compromised and cannot be tampered with, as was shown in the viral video. NETC, the umbrella organization for all retail payments systems in India has stated that FASTags cannot operate in any Person to Person capacity through open internet connectivity. The official statement reads, “Everytime the Bank connects with NPCI through API connectivity, the data is encrypted with a secure 256H SHA ECC algorithm and locked with a Hexadecimal Private Key.”
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The video in question shows a boy illegally scanning the FASTag with his smartwatch after he wipes the windshield of a car. When questioned by the driver about the watch, the kid runs away quickly. The video further shows the driver claiming that the kid is part of a group of fraudsters who steal money via FASTag stickers that vehicle owners keep to quicken the Person to Merchant transaction process at toll booth plazas. These kids who do cleaning of vehicles on traffic signals are given smartwatches with scanners to carry out the process. The man can be seen claiming that these children hold their watches near the FASTag, and the money is debited without any authorisation.
Denying the claims, the NPCI says that the National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) FASTag Ecosystem is built on a 4-party model including NPCI, Acquirer Bank, Issuer Bank and Toll Plazas. The organization further added, “Several layers of security protocols are placed to ensure the end-to-end safe processing of transactions.”
Apart from this, the NPCI has also delisted the person from all Social Media Platforms to curb the spread of misinformation.
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