By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – While a National Post consumer reporter shared his story of having his phone number ported against his will last week, the next day, coincidentally, the CRTC sent a request for information to wireless providers asking them further information on that very subject.
At the beginning of this “process” (although it’s not an official CRTC proceeding at this point) the Public Interest Advocacy Centre had voiced its reservations about the nature of this exercise, asking for a public hearing.
In effect, this started in January 2020 with a CRTC staff letter (not a notice initiating a public proceeding) sent to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association requesting some information about this new form of fraud which revolved on the use of a text to authenticate a commercial transaction and the process for someone to obtain another person wireless phone number.
This fraud has long plagued Europe and Africa and has recently become an issue in North America.
After obtaining some personal information about a potential victim, the fraudsters can have the number ported to them and the heart of the issue here is the porting process.
To facilitate competition, the porting is quick and simple… too quick and simple, perhaps.
As Telus explained in its response to CRTC staff: “The current wireless porting process was designed with a single purpose: to facilitate a speedy transfer of customers between wireless networks with minimal effort on behalf of the customer. Nonetheless, Telus recognizes that the security of financial transactions (among other things) now depends on the porting process and that changes to the porting process can reduce (and have already reduced) the risk or severity of harm to Canadians.”
On February 14th, the CWTA and the main wireless providers responded on the steps its members had taken to add additional safeguards to thwart fraudster efforts and provided data about this phenomenon. They asked the CRTC for this information to remain confidential.
The request for additional information by CRTC staff, sent on May 28th, referenced a CBC news story where the porting took place because the victim did not respond within the 30 minutes given to object. The same process was referenced in the National Post story mentioned above. These reports seem to contradict the CWTA letter, which says “Where the information is validated, the port proceeds to completion. When not validated, the port request is rejected and sent to the NSP (new service operator) to action.”
Besides asking for more detailed information about the number of incidents, CRTC staff also asks: “For customer transfers (ports) between mobile carriers, each mobile carrier to provide “…what measures is the old service carrier taking to verify that it is, in fact, the ‘legitimate’ customer requesting the transfer.”
Answers are expected from the CWTA and the carriers on June 16.
