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Proto is expanding citizen engagement chatbots in the Philippines under the country’s Internet Transactions Act mandate to automate consumer complaint resolution across more than 50 government agencies.
After successfully automating 76% of nationwide financial sector complaints for the Central Bank of the Philippines and achieving similar results for the nation’s securities exchange and trade department, Proto has been requested to provide the integrated chatbot system required under the country’s new Internet Transactions Act.
The system will create an interconnected supervisory network to streamline consumer protection across energy, health, financial services, agriculture, social welfare, justice, and other sectors. Consumers will be able to lodge queries and complaints with any agency, and have these answered or automatically referred to the correct agency for resolution.
This is a major expansion on the initial No Wrong Door Policy piloted within the Department of Trade & Industry of the Philippines (DTI), which holds the mandate for consumer protection under the Internet Transaction Act.
This expansion is also an important milestone within global consumer protection and supervisory technology, representing the first known instance of a whole-of-government approach to consumer protection with AI technology.
How digital services challenge consumer protection and trust
In many low and middle income countries, digital services such as payments have grown to a bigger footprint than traditional ones — accelerated by the past decade’s global financial inclusion initiative. These innovative solutions have improved the inclusion for hundreds of millions of unbanked and digitally-excluded citizens, but they also increase the risk of fraud, data misuse, and opaque or hidden charges.
These issues tend to disproportionately affect the poorest consumers. For example, the World Banks’s 2023 study on Digital Finance Consumer Risks found that 90% of consumers in Senegal experienced a consumer protection challenge, and 40% lost money as a result. When consumers are not protected, it damages their trust in financial systems and prevents them from accessing life-changing tools proven to lift citizens out of poverty, like microloans and digital payments. Once this trust is lost, it is very difficult to regain. Per Findex, 23% of consumers chose not to access formal financial services due to this lack of trust in institutions.
Government agencies, specifically supervisory authorities, have visibility over wider digital systems and can govern market conduct — but they lack the capability to effectively tackle harm affecting the most vulnerable. These agencies see the use of integrated technology as a strong opportunity to build such capability. Spearheading this opportunity in the Philippines will be the E-Commerce Bureau of the Department of Trade & Industry, which has embraced the potential of AI for consumer protection.
DTI Undersecretary Mary Jean Pacheco said, “As a long-term client of the Proto, the Department of Trade & Industry was pleased to deployed its latest generative AI features. Next, with the new Internet Transactions Act of the Philippines, we’re looking forward to integrating the consumer recourse systems across over 50 government agencies in order to provide the most effective and centralised consumer protection capability for our country.”
As part of this project, Proto will enable design workshops required for integrating software systems across the 50 government agencies. In preparation for this expansion, Proto has been further developing its AICX Platform with data privacy features and voice AI models for local languages like Cebuano and Illocano.
Proto CEO Curtis Matlock said, “Government engagement should be effective and instantaneous for citizens. With advances in AI and modernised laws like the Internet Transactions Act in the Philippines — we can now overcome common gaps in consumer protection, especially for vulnerable citizens who suffer scams. Proto is working closely with the E-Commerce Bureau and, together, we are setting a new standard for consumer recourse systems.”
In addition to the required livechat, ticketing and analytics capabilities, the Proto AICX Platform will provide the agencies with:
- Data protection including on-premise data hosting, iFrame embedding for citizen authentication, large language model switching, and IP allowlists for remote government workers.
- ProtoAI, the proprietary voice and text AI engine for local languages like Tagalog and Kapampangan, which are not adequately understood by large language models.
- Messaging channels including Messenger, Viber and SMS to provide accessible consumer protection within Filipinos’ preferred apps — instead of expecting them to find government websites.
- Real-time analytics to empower supervisory agencies with misconduct warnings and market insights that support quick supervisory decision making.
Over the coming months, Proto and the Lab will be expanding beyond the Philippines to provide the integrated AI consumer protection system to government agencies in Africa under the recently announced $1.8M support of the Gates Foundation. This expansion will be guided by this example set in the Philippines.
About the Department of Trade and Industry
The Department of Trade and Industry is the executive department of the Philippines government responsible for business and trade innovation, growth, and consumer protection. The department consists of six functional groups that collaborate to deliver services to businesses and the public, and facilitate policymaking to further business development across the Philippines.
