CRTC approves trial of plan to reduce scam calls

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WINNIPEG — Canadians may soon be getting fewer scam calls.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has approved a 90-day trial of Bell’s plan to use artificial intelligence to help put an end to fraudulent phone calls.

According to a news release, Bell’s new system uses “defined sets of call characteristics and proprietary machine learning algorithms” to identify which calls are fraudulent.

It said this system could stop about 120 million scam calls every month, in addition to the 220 million fraudulent calls it shuts down using a plan implemented in 2019.

Bell is the parent company of CTV News.