The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) granted Bell Canada a 90-day trial to use its artificial intelligence technology to block certain fraudulent and scam calls.

In its June 9 announcement, the CRTC noted that Bell’s plans would analyze traffic to flag anomalies that suggest possible fraudulent and scam activity, then once the activity is verified Bell would “block subsequent related calls associated with the anomalous activity at the network level.”

Because the blocking would be done at the network level “there is no notification given to either the originator or the intended recipient that a call has been blocked.” Only voice calls would be affected, not text messages and other telecommunications.

As part of its proposal, Bell defined fraudulent or scam calls as “a voice telecommunication call that attempts, by deceit, falsehood or other fraudulent means, to defraud a person, organization or the public of any property, money, valuable security, or any service.”

The CRTC decision includes many objections raised by intervenors, around false positives and the use of data collected as well as Bell’s responses. The CRTC viewed Bell’s initiative as complementary to existing regulatory measures such as Universal Call Blocking and STIR/SHAKEN (a measure to reduce Voice over the Internet Protocol spam calls.

The CRTC media release outlines a number of interim reporting requirements for Bell, but does not disclose the start date of the 90-day trial.