The national comms regulators of 19 countries have agreed to participate in a new assembly dedicated to tackling the kinds of frauds that occur over phone networks. The inception of the Global Informal Regulatory Antifraud Forum (GIRAF) stems from the i3Forum’s program to restore trust in communications, with the intention that regulators will meet and coordinate with each other through GIRAF whilst telcos engage with each other through a parallel stream of meetings managed by the One Consortium. The idea is that GIRAF should ultimately speak with one voice on behalf of a large number of regulators, One Consortium will speak with one voice on behalf of a large number of telcos, and then the two blocs will be able to negotiate more effectively with each other. Agreeing new transnational rules for validating calls and messages was never going to be easy but it is apparent that a growing number of regulators and telcos are prepared to compromise with each other in order to attain viable solutions sooner.
The first meeting of GIRAF will be held on June 3 and will be chaired by a representative of the Norwegian Communications Authority (Nkom). Regulators from the following European countries have already committed to attend.
- Belgium
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Denmark
- France
- Greece
- Hungary
- Ireland
- Italy
- Latvia
- the Netherlands
- Norway
- Portugal
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Turkey
GIRAF organizers are also understood to be in regular contact with several regulators from other continents and are hopeful of persuading some of them to attend the first meeting. The euro-centric bias of the initial membership can easily be explained as reflecting the traditional strength of the i3Forum amongst European carriers and by the growing concern that European countries will be bombarded by scammers unless they adopt a consistent strategy for cross-border telecoms crime prevention.
I have empathy for those national regulators from countries like Australia and Singapore that have done a great job of tackling scams but which have often been sidelined by international bodies that only arrange meetings at times which are inconvenient for anyone in the Eastern hemisphere. GIRAF must acknowledge the importance of the Asia-Pacific region to any global plan to disrupt scam call centers. I also have sympathy for regulators who feel less comfortable with dialogue that occurs in English. We especially need forward-thinking regulators from Latin America to take more of a leadership role in tackling scams, not least because of reports that Chinese gangs have started to establish scam call centers in Peru. But there will be less sympathy if the US and Canadian regulators fail to show up. They have spent a lot of time telling their own populations about how they want international cooperation, but these regulators have shown few signs that they are willing to compromise. If GIRAF succeeds then it will be because regulators recognize the futility of different countries imposing inconsistent rules to govern the same international telecoms traffic.
GIRAF is solely for comms regulators; vendors need not apply! The hard work that has gone into establishing GIRAF has remained largely under the radar to discourage commercial organizations from attempting to hijack the agenda. Any regulators reading this article who wish to attend GIRAF are welcome to get in touch and we will connect you with the meeting organizers.
