Neustar Enables Seamless Cross-Border STIR/SHAKEN Call Authentication Between US and Canada

December 13, 2021 at 09:00 AM EST

Represents continued adoption of STIR/SHAKEN standards to combat nuisance calls

Neustar, Inc., a TransUnion company, announced today that all communication service provider customers using Neustar-hosted Certified Caller for STIR/SHAKEN call authentication can now originate and verify international calls between the U.S. and Canada. This new capability is free to customers and represents an important step towards international adoption of the latest call authentication standards.

“Telecommunications service providers in Canada were required to implement STIR/SHAKEN standards by November 30, so the expanded capability of Neustar Certified Caller comes at the perfect time,” said James Garvert, senior vice president and general manager of Communication Solutions for Neustar. “It will greatly simplify and streamline authentication of international calls between the U.S. and Canada, and help promote standards that benefit all countries, enterprises, and consumers.”

With STIR/SHAKEN standards in place, phone calls are verified and signed using digital certificates so spoofed calls can be identified, detected, and stopped before they reach consumers.

In the past, calls authenticated in Canada could not be verified in the U.S., and vice versa, because the approved Certificate Authority (STI-CA) issuing the STIR/SHAKEN certificate in one country was not recognized in the other. However, as of October 22, 2021, Policy Administrators (PAs) in the U.S. and Canada made their approved STIR/SHAKEN STI-CA lists available to the public. Neustar then updated its solution to enable secure cross-border capabilities with no development or integration efforts required from customers.

“As citizens around the world continue to be inundated with robocalls, regulators have stepped in to encourage participation in call authentication,” said Garvert. “Cross-border solutions are a critical component to any successful robocall mitigation strategy. That’s why it’s so encouraging to see STIR/SHAKEN standards supported internationally, as evidenced by having 127 different countries represented in the FCC Robocall Mitigation Database (RMDB).”

Neustar is the industry leader in caller identification solutions, a co-author of the STIR standards, a key contributor to the SHAKEN framework and the exclusive operator of the ATIS Robocalling Testbed for STIR/SHAKEN implementations. To support the STIR standards, Neustar collaborates with the IETF, ATIS, SIP Forum, the Network Working Group, the GSMA, 3GPP and NICC. Neustar is helping restore trust in phone calls by authenticating over 30 billion domestic and international calls each month.

Neustar Certified Caller customers in the U.S. and Canada that conform to published country-specific governance authority policies do not need to take any additional steps for cross-border call authentication. For more information, email callerid@team.neustar.

ABOUT TRANSUNION (NYSE: TRU)

TransUnion is a global information and insights company that makes trust possible in the modern economy. We do this by providing an actionable picture of each person so they can be reliably represented in the marketplace. As a result, businesses and consumers can transact with confidence and achieve great things. We call this Information for Good^®. A leading presence in more than 30 countries across five continents, TransUnion provides solutions that help create economic opportunity, great experiences, and personal empowerment for hundreds of millions of people. http://www.transunion.com

ABOUT NEUSTAR

Neustar, Inc., a TransUnion company, is a leader in identity resolution providing the data and technology that enable trusted connections between companies and people at the moments that matter most. Neustar offers industry-leading solutions in marketing, risk and communications that responsibly connect data on people, devices and locations, continuously corroborated through billions of transactions. Learn how your company can benefit from the power of trusted connections. home.neustar