Industry Committee on Sept. 29th, 2022

[Ian Scott]

The short answer to that—it's a bit unfair—would be no. As Mr. Harroun explained before—or it may have been my other colleague, pardon me—we're not a law enforcement agency in that sense. We're not enforcing criminal law. We have to hand off those things where we identify them.

Mr. Masse and I talked about this briefly. The area where we could use some legislative help, for lack of a better term, is to expand our ability to share information in both directions. That would be helpful so that we can assist law enforcement agencies in their work. I do have to draw a line. They do their work, and we do ours.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

Did you have another question?

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

No. Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

We'll move to MP Gray for five minutes.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

Mr. Scott, I want to focus my questions today around an issue that was brought forward during our previous industry committee study in this area: the SIM swapping and phone porting scam. Since that study took place, what actions has the CRTC taken to prevent either of these types of fraud from taking place?

[Ian Scott]

Thank you for the question.

I didn't bring statistics with me today, but the short answer is that the industry has taken numerous steps, and the results have been very encouraging. The numbers of SIM-swapping activities have drastically declined.

I don't know, Steven, if you have the numbers top of mind.

A lot of the industry's work was done co-operatively under the banner of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. They said that they would introduce measures through their members to add additional layers of protection. They've agreed to various measures, and they co-operate, and those measures have resulted in a significant reduction. It hasn't eliminated the problem—there are always opportunistic actors—but it has vastly improved.

I didn't bring those statistics with me, but I can confirm that the problem is significantly lessened. I'll use that word.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

That's great. Thank you very much.

As you said, if you have that information and would be able to table it for this committee, that would be appreciated.

[Ian Scott]

We'd be able to give some numbers in the aggregate but not broken down, for the very reason that we don't want bad actors and nefarious players to be able to use disaggregated information to figure out who best to target. To the extent we release that information, we do it on an aggregated basis, if that's acceptable to members.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

That's great. Thank you very much.

Also on that note, can you table for the committee, broken down by month from August 2019 to now, the number of phone porting and SIM-swapping cases of fraud logged by the CRTC as well? Do you have that information?

[Ian Scott]

I would have to check. I don't think we would disclose that type of disaggregated information.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Okay. Do you have general...if it's not broken down in that detail?

[Ian Scott]

What I will undertake to do is to look at the numbers we have on an aggregated basis and provide the committee with everything we can, if that would be helpful.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

That's great. Thank you very much.

One of the things you mentioned in your opening address was around AI. This committee undertook a study on quantum computing and how that's emerging. The study is now complete, but there were a lot of concerns brought forth on that, specifically around security risks.

Do you have any information? Is this something you're looking at? We know this is emerging. What impacts could this have in this area we're talking about today with the fraud calls, and are there ways that you're preparing for this?

[Ian Scott]

If you're going to ask me to speak to the issue of quantum physics, I think I'm going to duck, and I'm not even sure I could hand that off. I don't even think I can call a friend.

If I can try this, when we approved the trial for Bell and ultimately approved a service, the biggest challenges we received were, one, concerns about privacy and, two, concerns—if you will—about false positives, the potential for blocking out legitimate calls. The trial showed that there were virtually no accidental or erroneous blockages. That's why, after seeing full evidence from the trial, we approved it.

I have not heard of any application beyond that. Nothing has been brought to the commission at this point, but I would suggest that we would approach any such project or proposal the same way that we approached the Bell project. We would want to look at it, have a public proceeding, get the opinions of the Privacy Commissioner and advocates for privacy and any other academic or professional concerns about strengths and weaknesses, develop a record and then make a decision. We're open to every solution the industry and individuals could bring to us. Then we'll have them tested before we allow them to be applied.

I hope that answers the question.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

That's great. Thank you.

It seems, if I'm hearing what you're saying, that you haven't really started on anything like that. It's something that should definitely be on your radar.

[Ian Scott]

I have not heard about using quantum computing in this area at all. I'll quickly check with my colleagues.

No, there's nothing to date, but if you have something, we will hear it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move, for our last questioner, to MP Erskine-Smith for five minutes.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you, Joël.

Mr. Scott, this was a while ago when we had a different chair. I think Brian and I were members of the committee, and I'm not sure if anyone else here was, when we undertook the study on fraudulent calls in Canada, which was entitled “Fraudulent Calls in Canada: A Federal Government's First Start”. I just want to make sure. Have you and your team reviewed that study?

[Ian Scott]

Are you referring to the committee's report?

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That's correct.

[Ian Scott]

Yes, we have.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

The government is obligated to respond. The government has responded and pointed to some work it's been doing. There has been credible work to address this issue. In the interest of time, because we don't have much time, would it be possible to get in writing, following up, a clearer sense of the CRTC's perspective in terms of how they have responded, in some cases, to the recommendation, or where the issues were that we were highlighting and how the CRTC is acting in relation to them? Would it be possible to have a more fulsome response in writing that is akin to a response to the report, to go through recommendations where they're relevant to the CRTC so that we have a better understanding of actions the CRTC has undertaken?

[Ian Scott]

I'm glad you added the last part.

I would be pleased to undertake a response to describe various measures, as we've tried to do today, that the CRTC has taken that are responsive in some way to the recommendations of the committee. I'd be pleased to do that. You'll understand that it's not my place to respond on behalf of the government, but certainly on behalf of our agency—

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

No, exactly. I wouldn't ask you to.

[Ian Scott]

—I'd be happy to provide you with a summary of the things we've done that we believe are responsive to issues raised in the report germane to our jurisdiction.