Evidence of meeting #8 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was crtc.
A video is available from Parliament.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
The CRTC is quite proactive about spoofed numbers.
In terms of SIM swap, however, it's a real mess. The CRTC assures us that there will be a solution, but that it will be communicated to the companies only, with no transparency. So I do not trust the CRTC in this matter, and I am calling for a public inquiry to find out what it is doing.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
My next question is about seniors.
In the opinion of both of you, are enough preventive measures being taken, and how can we ensure that we better protect our seniors?
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
My opinion may not be nice to hear. I don't think it's possible to go beyond a certain level of technological education when it comes to seniors, despite everything we may teach them or the examples we may give them when we meet with them. We get too many calls for there not to be victims. Email exchanges are more significant.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
This is what I'm gathering from your comments: the volume of calls is too high, which means that there are a lot of victims even though the official number of fraud cases is low.
Mr. Gamble, do you have anything to add with respect to seniors?
Director, Internet Society Canada Chapter
No. I would agree with John on all the challenges he mentioned.
Liberal
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
All the evidence right now is that this disproportionately hurts seniors and people in the low-income sphere. Is that correct?
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
That's certainly my understanding. In particular, it's newer Canadians, who may be more scared of calls.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I'd ask both of you this. We heard the companies outline some of the things they were doing, but they also get an escape from CRTC from not having to offer free call blocking. It would seem reasonable to me that call blocking would be offered as a universal system or that this should all be employed and not cost Canadians. They were unclear about what they offered and didn't offer in packages.
We're going to do more research on this. Basically, as a consumer, you have to pay more to get more filtration and protection from fraud. Is that a correct statement, yes or no?
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
I would say yes and no, and then let me explain.
For the blocking of spoof numbers, that's free. It's a CRTC ruling. For STIR/SHAKEN, it depends on the way they implement it. For the network thing, I really think Bell and these guys are going to charge you $10 a month.
Director, Internet Society Canada Chapter
I would just add that there are some carriers in Canada that do charge and some that do not.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Yes. That's one thing I'm looking for recommendations for. Until STIR/SHAKEN is implemented, that should actually be provided to consumers right away. This is a clear abuse pattern we're seeing. If they're asking for more time for STIR/SHAKEN, there needs to be a benefit back to Canadians to stem the tide of this abusive behaviour, which is also, I'd argue, a bane on our economy. We saw that with spam in the past, and those were some of the reasons we brought in those laws.
Would it be unreasonable for consumers to expect something similar to a J.D. Power ranking of some of these carriers in terms of how they deal with fraud? We do that for the auto sector, where I come from. It allows an independent voice to take a look at each. They can decide, as a consumer, what they're getting charged for and what they're getting benefit from.
My concern is that if you have a higher income and more money in your pocket, you can actually get a better benefit and protection than lower-income Canadians. I think that informing consumers and letting them decide would be something that might be helpful.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
If you end up with a system where consumers are paying for some of this protection, then I think that having some kind of ranking would be one way to do it.
If it's a regulatory requirement that it be offered, then the CRTC should still collect statistics to see if they're complying and how good their systems are. If they're below standard, then we could look at ways to try to improve each carrier.
Director, Internet Society Canada Chapter
Once STIR/SHAKEN is there and made available, the end result will be close to what spam filtering is today. We'll be able to judge based on how much spam we receive. There would be metrics available.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
The key, though, with some of the systems is that if you can't afford to have someone upgrading the system, you're not going to be a candidate for that. The new devices that are going to be capable of this either have to be mandated or you'll have to replace them, which is also going to be an economic boon for some and a detraction for others. It's also more complicated for some people who don't have the ability to swap their phone plan program out sooner than others. That's going to be a big issue.
At this point, should we ask the Privacy Commissioner for commentary? The problem we have with the CRTC, quite frankly, is that it hasn't had a major overhaul in over 20 years. Expecting them to make some of these changes alone without a legislative change from Parliament is going to handicap them very significantly.
Should we be asking for advice from the Privacy Commissioner on STIR/SHAKEN and this issue?
Director, Internet Society Canada Chapter
I believe we should. There are serious implications when data is passed to third parties for analytics that have not been addressed yet.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
I'd just add that thinking about digital policy in a more holistic way will help us a lot. We're not quite there yet. Involving the Privacy Commissioner would assist with STIR/SHAKEN, but with the other network-level blocking as well, to see whether there are any concerns. Perhaps it should also include, if it comes into being, the digital commissioner office.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
When we are looking at some of our international obligations for trade agreements, should this be a thing we include as one of the actual components? The new USMCA has the digital charter as part of it, but is this something we should be looking at with regard to our trade agreements with other countries?
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
By that, do you mean protecting any regulations we set up so as to require this?
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Yes, I do, and maybe to require some type of oversight or some type of side agreement related to telephone and Internet abuse and fraud.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
I would say yes, from our group's point of view, but getting it to be part of an overall digital policy that goes with trade policy and makes sense is the trick.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
You mentioned more work on fraud from Parliament Hill. Can you give me more specifics about what you think we can do under the context we currently have and maybe suggest some regulatory improvements?
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
The point of the comment at the end of my remarks was that the fraud provision in the Criminal Code may need to be made more specific for telephone-delivered or phished fraud.
