Rita Barbosa, 24, needed two days to create an application, awarded in Germany, capable of detecting and preventing scams through calls or messages. The system identifies fraud attempts in just two seconds and automatically disconnects calls.
A new application that prevents and detects scams made through calls or telephone messages was the Portuguese project that won an international programming competition, revealed the creator of the application designed for the elderly population.
“I want to stop scams and I will bring security back to families”, engineer Rita Barbosa, 24, winner of the biggest programming event with artificial intelligence (AI) in Germany, told Lusa, in which each project has to be executed in two days, and which had 450 participants from 48 countries.
According to the engineer, the “Guardião” application has a that analyzes incoming calls and messages and If they are scams, they are deleted from the cell phone, even before being read or attended to by the user.
How does the anti-scam application work?
Rita Barbosa also said that this agent may need to listen to the call to understand if it is a scam, being able to identify in two seconds if it is a crime.
“As soon as [o agente] If you realize that the call is definitely misleading, that is, it is a scam, disconnect the call. It doesn’t even give people the opportunity to do anything else, he explained.
Regarding the privacy of user data, Rita Barbosa said that the information on the cell phone does not leave the device, with no one having access to any of the user’s personal information, such as conversations.
The creator added that the application, created in two days, is easy to use because the user does not need to “do absolutely anything” for it to work after installing the application.
Rita was inspired by her grandmother to create the application
Rita Barbosa mentioned that the application can be installed on any cell phone, and is expected to be ready for download, free of charge, on the Google “Play Store” digital distribution platform at the end of February.
He said that the idea came after his grandmother being a victim of fraud and losing between 3,000 and 4,000 euros.
“[A avó] He ended up stopping using his cell phone because he was already afraid of everything and didn’t know how to use it properly. [no telemóvel]”, said Rita Barbosa, noting that the application can be used by anyone, but was designed for the older population.
In Portugal, more than two million people are over 65 years old, with few being able to distinguish a legitimate call from a scam, according to the technical document from the “Guardião” application to which Lusa had access.
“Instead of teaching the elderly to distrust, we created something that distrusts for them”, says the document.
Rita Barbosa, with a degree in Computer Engineering from the Faculty of Science and Technology at Universidade Nova de Lisboa and studying for a master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence at the Technical University of Hamburg, won 70,000 dollars (around 59,330 euros) in prizes, credits and plans, winning first place in the biggest AI programming event, “AI Hackathon (Artificial Intelligence) in Europe”, in the January 2026 edition.
