Fraudulent calls aren’t going away, panel hears

New technology to block nuisance phone calls is scheduled to be implemented in September, but the CRTC and telephone companies are warning that it won’t be a cure-all for the fraudulent and annoying phone calls that have been frustrating Canadians for years.

The new framework — dubbed STIR/SHAKEN — is already being rolled out in the U.S. and Canada will be following on its heels.

The CRTC has set a September deadline, after a previous deadline in 2019 passed, but the public authority is warning that technical complications could push the rollout even farther down the road.

“We have to be open and understand there may be technical challenges,” said Ian Scott, the CEO of the CRTC, who testified at Tuesday’s industry committee meeting along with representatives from the major phone companies. “Only if necessary will we add additional time.”

Representatives from Bell, Rogers and Telus warned that expectations of the new technology shouldn’t be too high.

“If you turned on STIR/ SHAKEN tomorrow on our network, very, very few would have phones that would benefit from it,” said Jonathan Daniels, Bell’s vice-president of regulatory law told members of parliament. “There’s no rush to put it out because very few people can actually use it,” he said.

Bell would prefer a mid2022 deadline for the technology, which would allow phone manufacturers to catch up to it. Phones that take advantage of the technology would have some way to signal to users about whether the call is suspicious, like green and yellow alert lights.

By all accounts, the amount of fraudulent calls has been skyrocketing in North America and at least one member of parliament received a fraudulent phone call during the committee meeting.

According to the call-blocking firm Truecaller, the average Canadian receives 12 spam calls per month. The company estimated that 43 million Americans were scammed last year, losing about $10.5 billion.

Speaking to reporters after the committee meeting, Scott said that fighting fraud is a constant battle that rarely provides a clear victory.

“It’s like saying to law enforcement, when are you going to eliminate crime. You’re not,” said Scott.

The committee’s investigation into nuisance phone calls was sparked by NDP MP Brian Massie, who urged the telephone companies to make caller ID completely free-of-charge to Canadians if companies can’t stop the calls coming in.