Survey sheds light on caller ID's trust problem

More sophisticated scammers often spoof phone numbers, passing themselves off as banks, telcos, e-commerce companies and so-on, in hopes of duping their victims into handing over sensitive information, or even transferring money.

As such, what started out as vigilance among consumers is now more akin to paranoia, with calls originating from anyone other than a personal acquaintance being routinely rejected or ignored, causing headaches for companies with valid reasons to reach out.

This is the crux of a new report published by Numeracle, which surveyed more than 2,000 US consumers and found that 86 percent would not answer a call even if caller ID information was displayed. 85 percent said they rarely or never trust caller ID for an unrecognised number. Furthermore, 69 percent said they have missed, ignored or declined an important call due to this lack of trust.

There is sound reasoning behind this distrust. For the 43 percent of survey respondents who have fallen victim to a scam call, the most common reason they provided for initially answering the phone was that the caller ID led them to believe it was a trustworthy person or business.

This has a knock-on effect on a brand's reputation. The survey found that 69 percent of consumers said their perception of brands operating in sectors most associated with spam and scam calls has been negatively affected.

Now, it's worth bearing in mind that Numeracle offers identity and verification services to enterprises that prevent their calls from being improperly labelled as spam, and by extension provides assurance to consumers that they are receiving a genuine call and not being targeted by a scammer.

Ergo the survey results are very much aligned with Numeracle's business interests; nonetheless, it does draw attention to an important issue.

In August, security firm Hiya revealed it had flagged nearly 20 billion suspected scam calls in the first half of this year, more than 107 million per day. What's more, an increasing number of calls impersonate people or organisations using AI-generated voice-cloning technology, potentially improving their efficacy.

In July, Ofcom revealed that 48 percent of UK landline users and 39 percent of mobile users received a suspicious call in the preceding three months.

While these figures represent declines from 56 percent and 45 percent respectively, the regulator considers the problem sufficiently serious to warrant tougher action on the part of operators.

As such, they agreed to block calls from abroad that falsely display what's known as the 'presentation number' – i.e. the caller ID. From now on, operators can only connect overseas calls with a UK presentation number if they meet certain but unspecified 'legitimate use' criteria.

And improving the accuracy and trustworthiness of caller ID is what Numeracle is all about.

"The issue of trust and accuracy with regards to caller ID information is an important one. Greater accuracy does not always equate to increased trust, but in this context, the two are inextricably linked. Consumers perceive existing caller ID information to be inaccurate, and therefore, untrustworthy," said Rebekah Johnson, founder and CEO of Numeracle.

"Little can be done to reduce the number of spam or scam calls being made each day, but there is an urgent need for a secure zero trust ecosystem open to those willing to play by the rules," she said. "Inaction will only lead to further scepticism from consumers, and risks negatively impacting the perception of brands using voice as a primary communication channel."

A zero trust ecosystem is emerging though, an ecosystem based on open network APIs. APIs like Number Verify and Device Location promise to make life much harder for scammers, by enabling automatic, network-level authentication of callers and where they are calling from.

As well-intended and as effective as Numeracle's solutions might be, it may have to adapt before too long to avoid being superseded.