Canadian Regulator Mandates Caller ID Authentication

Robocalls are a nuisance for telephone customers. Government regulators have set up Do Not Call lists and rules to keep robocalls at bay, but it isn’t working. There’s money to be made from robocalling, and technology makes it easy to conceal the caller’s true identity.

As long as telemarketers can fake their caller ID, telephone customers can be tempted to answer robocalls. Irate customers are flooding regulators with complaints, and mandates to require telecommunications service providers (TSPs) to implement caller ID authentication have been looming on the horizon. Now, in Canada, it’s happened.

On 25 January 2018, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced a mandate for caller ID authentication (CRTC 2018-32).

Highlights

  • Canadian TSPs should implement authentication and verification of caller ID information for Internet Protocol voice calls by no later than 31 March 2019.
  • TSPs are required to report on their progress through the CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee (CISC) every six months, beginning six months from the date of this announcement, which would be 25 July 2018.
  • Canadian TSPs are to develop a call traceback process. The CISC should file a report with the Commission for review and approval within nine months, which would be 25 October 2018.
  • The Commission is prepared to take further action if it becomes clear that the telecommunications industry is not taking sufficient measures to protect Canadians against nuisance calls.
Canadian caller ID authentication timeline

The Solution: STIR/SHAKEN

A technical standard, STIR, and a framework, SHAKEN, have been developed to enable TSPs to certify and authenticate caller ID. It uses certificates, public/private keys, and encryption to confirm caller ID so customers would know that the calling IDs are authentic. From the CRTC directive:

“The Commission considers that STIR/SHAKEN is likely the only current viable solution that can provide consumers with a measure of additional trust in caller ID. The Commission further considers that STIR/SHAKEN will increase the effectiveness of opt-in call filtering solutions and network-level blocking of nuisance calls with blatantly illegitimate caller ID.”

TransNexus has added STIR/SHAKEN functionality to SIP Analytics, our software application to manage and protect VoIP telecommunications systems.

This system is available to TSPs today in two platforms: ClearIP, our cloud-based hosted telecom platform, and NexOSS, our on-premises software platform. Because the ClearIP solution is hosted, you can begin testing it very quickly. Just configure a SIP trunk to point to ClearIP and start sending traffic. We can also help you set up your system to use test beds for STIR/SHAKEN, such as Neustar.

Whether you’re in Canada, where the mandate has been issued, or another country where mandates are pending, contact us today and let us show you how SIP Analytics can help you implement STIR/SHAKEN, satisfy the regulators, and help relieve your customers from annoying robocalls.

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