Overview
- Bell began rolling an AI-powered Suspicious Call Detection across its consumer brands on iOS and Android and says the feature will be enabled automatically with no opt-in required.
- The company says the new model can identify spoofing activity as calls traverse its network and label or block those calls before they reach customers.
- Bell reports its Suspicious Call Detection has analyzed about 4.4 billion calls and blocked or labelled over 540 million suspicious or fraudulent calls, and it expects the AI upgrade to prevent millions more deceptive calls.
- Spoofed calls work by using internet-based phone services to fake caller ID numbers so scammers can pretend to be banks or government offices, which makes them harder for users to spot than unknown numbers.
- Bell frames the move as an industry first for AI-based spoofing detection in Canada but competitors such as Rogers and Telus already offer network and device-level call filtering and Bell's effectiveness claims have not been independently verified.