Canada calls for measures to combat caller ID spoofing

Canada struggles, like the US and other countries, with mounting telephone fraud. Most countries, including Canada, are encouraging industry leaders to become engaged in solving telecom fraud issues, especially caller id spoofing, in order to protect their citizens.

After a recent proceeding on telecom fraud, the Canadian Radio, Television and Telecommunications Commission has called for submissions around technical solutions to alleviate caller id spoofing. Given the relative ease around modifying, hiding or displaying false caller ID information, criminals have been able to make substantial gains over the last few years, relatively unchecked. The US and the UK have developed some approaches that will improve the accuracy of the caller ID information and Canada is currently working to have the same improvements for their citizens.

Current efforts in the US and Canada are focused around STIR, a technical standard also known as Secure Telephone Identity Revisited, and SHAKEN (Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs), the protocol for STIR. STIR can be used to validate the telephone number of those calls made over the VoIP network, while SHAKEN provides a framework to make certain the caller ID information is displayed securely to end users.

The Robocall Strike Force (FCC) in the US and the Network Interoperability Consultative Committee (NICC) are both moving towards a solution for caller ID authentication. Canada, as well, is working towards solutions, calling for submissions to reduce this type of fraud by February 8, 2017. More details can be found here.