Evidence of meeting #35 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A video is available from Parliament.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
They have to come to us and say, “Can we apply this technology?” In that case, they said, “Could we do a trial and apply this technology to see if we can screen out calls in this way?” We gave them permission to do it on a temporary basis following a public proceeding where we got input, and then we gave it a permanent approval because they demonstrated that there were not errors and it was effective—
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
What do they do when they spot something, when they catch something that might be a criminal fraudulent call?
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
We have to separate criminal from what they believe are not—
Liberal
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Yes: legitimate calls or patterns—
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
What they should be doing.... As I said, it's a delicate question. Can they take some measures on their own? They might, but they have to be very careful, because there are very clear lines drawn in the—
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
They have to come to us and ask us.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
If they can give this information to you or tag the information about these calls, why can't they give that information to the RCMP?
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
If I'm understanding the question, we're mixing different concepts.
They don't know that it's a fraudulent call. What we're dealing with here, if we took spoofing.... Actually, I'll go back to the Bell example. That's a system where they're getting callbacks. They're calling numbers, and then they get a callback because people do it automatically, and then they get money.
People are making money on the international accounting settlements. I won't go into the details, but they're irregular. You shouldn't be getting thousands of calls from “a place”. It's the pattern of calls that you're dealing with.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
That is when they'll come and say, “We're seeing this pattern, and we know they're not legitimate calls.”
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Under the current legislation, can they go to the RCMP and say the same thing?
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
They could, but they don't know what's happening. They don't know. They can't go inside those calls and listen or know what's going on. They're coming to us, as the regulator, to say, “We think these calls are illegitimate and we want to take measures.”
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
That's not my question. My question is, under the current law, can they go to the RCMP?
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
They could go to the RCMP, but they would be telling them that they're getting a whole bunch of calls using this number pattern, which doesn't mean anything to the RCMP. It means something to us.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
The reason for my question is that we'll be seeing the RCMP on Monday. I'll ask the same question.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
They couldn't deal with that.
I'll just very quickly go back to the idea of malformed numbers. If you're getting numbers that aren't real phone numbers, full of a bunch of zeroes because scammers are sending calls through the system using phony numbers, or they're all fives or they're all fours, it doesn't matter what it is; they know it's not a real call. If that goes to the RCMP.... It's not a crime to try to use all fours to go through.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
I'm trying to find a way to break down silos and really understand what we can do in order for information to flow. Today we're hearing from you that you are not a law enforcement body. You want to pass on this information. I'm sure the RCMP will say it doesn't have access to this information. There is a door in between the two agencies. Who's going to open that door?
What I'm saying is—
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
I agree, and maybe Steven can speak briefly to the information.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
My point is that you don't collect information. You're not a service provider. The service provider is flagging these calls to you. I don't understand. You just explained the pattern. It's a different issue.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
It's a different issue. They're flagging to us that these are malformed numbers or whatever. Our intelligence group is flagging things like how there's a spam campaign; there's a campaign going on that looks as though it's fraudulent. We see it. We're getting complaints. They come to the spam reporting centre. Our intelligence group identifies, perhaps, where they're coming from.
Steven, you can add to this. That's the stuff we want to report to the RCMP, that we think there's a fraud campaign going on.