CRTC asks telecoms to implement new anti-spam call protocol

The CRTC Monday announced that it will ask telecom companies to implement a particular anti-call spoofing protocol, called STIR/SHAKEN, by September 30, 2020, and they will have to develop their own technology to do so. The technology will not block calls from coming through, but will instead feature some kind of notification mechanism that will notify the person receiving the call that the call is coming from a suspicious origin. The receiver of the call can then decide whether or not to answer. The STIR/SHAKEN system will attach some kind of verification on their phone display, attesting to whether the call appears suspicious or legitimate. It will be up to telecom service providers to design the particular system, according to CRTC officials speaking on a background call this morning. The protocol is already used by some telecom service providers in the United States. STIR stands for “secure telephony information revisited,” and SHAKEN stands for “signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens,” and will attach some kind of token, or identity marker, to individual numbers. This past summer, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission convened a summit for telecom service providers to showcase their process toward implementing the STIR/SHAKEN framework, and has said the framework will be implemented this year. The STIR/SHAKEN technology is a different program than the call-blocking program that telecom companies are meant to implement by next week, and is designed to identify fraudulent calls from Internet Protocol-based voice calls only. The call-blocking system, which telecom companies are meant to implement by December 19 of this year, will prevent calls originating from numbers that don’t conform to established numbering plans, such as 000-000-0000. The STIR/SHAKEN protocol, on the other hand, will let the calls come through, but with some kind of identification marker attached. For the call-blocking systems due next week, BCE Inc. still has a Part 1 application before the regulator asking if they can test an artificial intelligence system for call blocking. Some other providers have objected, saying that Bell shouldn’t be testing out new technologies on calls that don’t originate on its network. In response, Bell has offered to show other providers their AI technology, given they sign a non-disclosure agreement. “The new STIR/SHAKEN framework will enable Canadians to know, before they answer the phone, whether a call is legitimate or whether it should be treated with suspicion,” CRTC chairman Ian Scott said in a press release Monday. On this morning’s call, CRTC officials said there have been between 85,000 and 90,000 complaints this year alone related to nuisance calls. According to a CRTC spokesperson, the regulator is not yet considering any enforcement mechanisms, and is simply requesting that companies work towards implementing the protocol. Telecom companies have voiced their concerns about the program in the past, saying that the technology was relatively untested. Back in 2017, companies including BCE Inc., Telus Corp., and Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp. submitted a joint intervention to the CRTC, saying that STIR/SHAKEN would require them to make changes to their network architectures. Anti-call spoofing technologies that conform to the STIR/SHAKEN protocol don’t work on circuit-switched, or legacy, networks, the companies said. “Given the still considerable number of consumers currently served and expected for the foreseeable future to be served by circuit-switched networks in Canada and abroad, the effectiveness of such measure is expected to be low at its introduction but increasing over time as the base of consumers served by domestic and foreign STIR/SHAKEN capable SIP-based networks and devices grows,” their March 2017 intervention said. In a release today, the CRTC said that today it will conduct a test of the STIR/SHAKEN test call between Scott and the chairman of U.S. Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai. — With reporting by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

CRTC asks telecoms to implement new anti-spam call protocol

News | December 9, 2019

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CRTC asks telecoms to implement new anti-spam call protocol

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