OTTAWA — The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) is asking the CRTC again for public disclosure of confidential information submitted by Canadian wireless service providers to the Commission regarding the number of unauthorized mobile telephone number transfers (ports) and SIM swaps that have occurred within their services.
Starting January 11, 2021, wireless service providers (WSPs) have been required by the Commission to file monthly data regarding the occurrences of SIM swapping. (Cartt.ca has written before about the issue of SIM-swap fraud, or wireless number porting fraud.)
A Commission letter on December 22, 2020, required mobile carriers to provide, for each of their wireless brands, monthly data for December 2020 to March 2021 which included the following information:
- the total number of customer transfers (ports);
- the number of unauthorized customers transfers, separately for prepaid and postpaid accounts, as well as indicating whether the number of unauthorized transfers attributable to carrier or customer error were excluded;
- the total number of SIM swaps; and
- the total number of unauthorized SIM swaps.
The Commission has also asked for the carriers’ reports to comment on their monthly data, including any significant variations with previous months and any trends observed, and to describe any new process, initiative or measure that may be having an impact on the data.
In a letter filed with the Commission February 9 by PIAC (which it shared with Cartt.ca), the organization is asking for public disclosure of the carriers’ monthly reports, which the Commission has required be submitted on the second Monday of each month (the most recent reports were filed February 8).
“In short, the Commission is requiring the WSPs to provide details, from January 2021 going forward, on how many SIM-swaps are occurring with their services, in order to get a sense of scale, scope and seriousness of the problem, as well as whether it is being brought under control or is growing,” reads PIAC’s letter to the Commission.
“All of the WSPs, in all of their responses to these questions, including those for in January 2021 and February 2021, have claimed confidentiality regarding these numbers. Consumers and the public looking at these responses have no idea at all, whatever, of the size and scope of the problem of SIM-swap fraud occurring in Canada,” continues the letter.
PIAC says it is challenging the confidentiality claims of the WSPs, who generally are basing their reasons for confidentiality on the potential harm to their competitive position if the information is released publicly.
“PIAC submits the bare descriptions of commercial harm do not withstand scrutiny, even if they are supplemented. First, the problem of SIM-swap fraud is not a matter on which companies compete. To our knowledge, based on news reports of victims, all WSPs are susceptible to SIM-swap fraud. The Commission’s ‘proceeding’ on this file also acknowledges the pan-industry nature of this problem by including all WSPs in Canada,” says the letter.
“What appears, rather, to be hidden, is the overall scope of the problem, which is of course not harmful to any one provider to all and, additionally, the scope and volume of complaints within particular carriers, if they diverge greatly from their share of the wireless market.”
PIAC says the public interest in disclosure of the confidential data outweighs potential commercial harms, “in particular if the Commission were to order aggregated total numbers. However, we also submit that the public interest in particular WSPs’ SIM-swap fraud numbers are important for consumers. With such knowledge, consumers can both pressure their WSP to do better and can gauge the level of risk to their own accounts and take precautionary measures accordingly,” PIAC writes.
This isn’t the first time PIAC has asked for the disclosure of confidential data regarding the number of unauthorized SIM swaps that have occurred within wireless carriers’ services. The CRTC has already denied PIAC’s previous disclosure request, back in October, when the Commission also said it wouldn’t initiate a public proceeding into the issue.
In its letter to the Commission today, PIAC again calls for a public hearing on SIM-swap fraud, and backs up its request by citing two recommendations made by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (INDU) report titled Fraudulent Calls in Canada: A Federal Government’s First Start, released in November 2020.
In a section discussing “Unauthorized Porting” (pages 21-23 of the report), the standing committee makes the following recommendations:
Recommendation 12
That the Government of Canada support efforts by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to conduct a public inquiry into unauthorized porting.
Recommendation 13
Should the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission fail to launch a public inquiry into unauthorized porting within six months, that the Government of Canada introduce legislation to protect Canadians against unauthorized porting.
“Therefore, the Commission should heed the call of Parliament, as well as consumers and consumer advocates like PIAC who are loudly and repeatedly calling for a public inquiry into SIM-swap fraud. There is now no excuse for continuing with the ridiculous ‘cone of silence’ that the Commission is placing over its attempt to solve SIM-swap fraud. To do its job, the Commission needs consumer input. We stand ready to provide that input before the INDU Report’s deadline of June 2021,” writes PIAC in its letter.
It concludes by asking for public disclosure of the WSPs’ filings regarding SIM-swap fraud for January and February 2021, without redactions, and for the Commission to direct WSPs to file public, unredacted records going forward.
