Good afternoon, Madam Chair.
My name is Jonathan Daniels. I am Bell Canada's vice-president of regulatory law.
It is my pleasure to be here today to share with you the steps we have taken and continue to take in an effort to combat nuisance and fraudulent calling. We are strong proponents of protecting Canadians against these types of calls.
Specifically, I will speak to the three issues you asked us to discuss in this invitation: the national do-not-call list; fraudulent and nuisance calls; and STIR/SHAKEN protocols.
To begin, I'd like to address the issue of the national do-not-call list. While we agree that the list is a good tool that can help reduce the number of telemarketing calls received by Canadians and we are glad to have the benefit of such a tool in Canada, this tool does have limitations. Specifically, the national do-not-call list is only effective if everyone adheres to it. Unfortunately, the vast majority of nuisance calls received by Canadians come from callers outside of Canada that do not adhere to the national do-not-call list. Thus, we have to continually come up with new ways to stop unwanted calls.
This brings me to the issue of the recent influx of nuisance and fraudulent calls being experienced by Canadians. It is important to note that there is a difference between nuisance calls and fraudulent calls. Nuisance calls are calls that you do not want to receive. These types of calls are generally trying to sell you a service, such as duct cleaning. They are a nuisance and likely unwanted, but they are not necessarily illegitimate or fraudulent. Fraudulent calls are much worse than nuisance calls, as they are specifically designed to defraud Canadians. For example, you may receive a call offering to fix your computer, which is really an attempt to install a virus and lock you out of your computer, leading to a ransom demand. Other scams relate to credit cards. I have lost count of the number of times I have received a call from the so-called Visa/Mastercard centre, not to mention the infamous CRA scam. These fraudsters are sophisticated and intelligent, and stopping them will not be easy.
The industry has been working with the CRTC on a number of fronts in order to reduce both nuisance and fraudulent calls. ln that regard, I am pleased to be sitting on a panel today with representatives from both Rogers and Telus. It is unusual for me to take the time to acknowledge two of my competitors, but in this area of trying to reduce fraudulent and nuisance calls, it is important to note that we and many other players have been working together. In fact, our experts meet at least weekly, and often multiple times a week, to discuss these important issues.
When we deliver a call to you, we often display the number that is calling you. That is called a calling line ID, or CLID. In December of last year, the CRTC ordered carriers to start blocking calls that had a calling line ID or CLID that did not look like a real number. We refer to these calls as non-conforming calls. For example, if a call comes in on our network and has a CLID that exceeds 15 digits or is all zeros, we will block that call. To be clear, a non-conforming call is not necessarily a nuisance or fraudulent call, but having a non-conforming CLID is a very good indicator that a call may be problematic. On our network, we are now blocking approximately 220 million calls a month.
Another initiative the CRTC is pursuing is STIR/SHAKEN, which is the third topic the committee specifically asked about. STIR/SHAKEN works by letting consumers know that they can trust the telephone number that is being displayed. In other words, with STIR/SHAKEN, you will be able to know that the calling line ID you see on your phone is actually the real number calling you.
The CRTC recently sought comments on a proposal to require all carriers to implement STIR/SHAKEN. We support such a proposal. We think that we and all other carriers should be required to provide STIR/SHAKEN. However, we see STIR/SHAKEN as a long-term solution, as there is a variety of issues that need to be addressed before the benefits of a STIR/SHAKEN framework can be realized. It is for this reason that we, along with most of the industry, proposed that the CRTC STIR/SHAKEN mandate be delayed until we get the rules of the regime figured out. A lot of work needs to be done, and we are ready to do that work, but the industry and the CRTC must take time to do that work properly or else the solution will be flawed.
Let me give you an example. I think this is really an important point about STIR/SHAKEN. It's a long-term solution rather than a quick fix. Most phones today cannot display STIR/SHAKEN. Think of your land line telephone at home. Where would you see a check mark on your phone to confirm that the calling line ID displayed is actually the real number calling you? In fact, even most cellphones are not capable of displaying STIR/SHAKEN, although that will change in the next few years.
While we believe a mandate should be contingent on first finalizing the technical details, Bell has still committed to launch STIR/SHAKEN on portions of our network this September, but just because we launch it doesn't mean most Canadian consumers will be able to use it. There are a number of requirements that must be met in order for STIR/SHAKEN to fulfill its potential.
STIR/SHAKEN has promise, and we are fully committed to implementing it, but it is far from the only answer and will not materially address the problem of nuisance or fraudulent calls in the short term. Let me turn to something that I think will make a big difference.
ln addition to initiatives directed by the CRTC, we at Bell are committed to trying to protect our customers from fraudulent calls. Although we cannot identify all fraudulent calls, we have developed modern technology that allows us to identify millions of calls as being fraudulent.
ln identifying those calls, we work closely with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, an affiliate of the RCMP. However, even when we can definitively identify a call as fraudulent, we are not allowed to block that call without CRTC permission.
Thus last year we applied to the CRTC for permission to conduct a three-month trial process we had developed for identifying and blocking fraudulent calls. I believe that's what the chair was referring to when he mentioned that there's an application; that's from us.
We have not publicly disclosed the details of this process so that we do not provide fraudsters with a how-to manual on the best way to circumvent our proposed trial; however, we have provided the CRTC with the full details of the process, and we've also shared the details of this process with our competitors, public interest groups and individuals who signed a CRTC-approved non-disclosure agreement.
If granted permission, we anticipate that this process will block approximately 120 million fraudulent calls a month on our network. That is in addition to the 220 million calls we're already blocking as a result of non-conforming calls. We suspect, however, that most of the 220 million non-conforming calls currently blocked are nuisance calls rather than fraudulent calls.
Our proposed trial will only block fraudulent calls in an attempt to protect Canadians from bad actors trying to illegally defraud them. We look forward to launching our trial as soon as we receive CRTC approval.
Fraudulent calls and nuisance calls are a pressing and growing concern for Canadians. We at Bell are fully committed to addressing this issue, including by asking the CRTC for permission to implement our new proposal to actively block these fraud calls. However, there is no one solution. We will continue to work with the CRTC, our competitors and our consumer groups to find new and innovative solutions to address this issue.
With that I will conclude.
Thank you.