A group of technology companies and voice service providers announced a key milestone in protecting consumers from fraudulent robocalls and building a more secure and trustworthy telephone ecosystem. Comcast, Everbridge, NetNumber, Numeracle, and Twilio completed what is believed to be the first ever call to combine authenticated caller ID and Rich Call Data (RCD), powered by the STIR/SHAKEN framework and protocols.

Enhancing authenticated caller ID as an extension of STIR/SHAKEN, Rich Call Data is an evolutionary leap forward for trust in the phone ecosystem. Using public key cryptography and the global STIR/SHAKEN family of protocols, Rich Call Data allows legitimate callers to tell recipients exactly who they are, where they’re calling from, and even why they are calling, with the highest degree of trust and certainty. This technology is particularly important for enterprise callers, who need reliable tools to reach their customers.

The history-making call was completed on Comcast’s voice network using a suite of interoperable technologies and networks from Everbridge, NetNumber, Numeracle, and Twilio.

“With this milestone, we’re beginning to tap into the full power of STIR/SHAKEN to protect consumers and further increase trust in the global telephone ecosystem,” said Chris Wendt, Director of Technical Research and Development, IP Communications Services, Comcast Cable. “While call authentication is powerful by itself, the ability to deliver Rich Call Data to recipients has the potential to create a level of trust and visibility that was never before possible.”

Enterprise callers, contact centers, and their telephone services technology providers use a complex set of call-initiation and routing relationships to deliver calls to customers and consumers. Everbridge, a communications service provider supporting critical event calls and notifications for emergency scenarios—calls that need to be answered—was selected as a demonstration of the power of delivering authenticated enhanced caller identification in this proof of concept. The ability for enterprises to provide Rich Call Data associated with calls they control is a recent addition to the STIR/SHAKEN family of call authentication specifications.

“The Rich Call Data enhancements demonstrated here are key to providing consumers a trusted experience while ensuring that essential calls will reach the intended recipients and that citizens will be reliably notified,” said Dr. Eric Golin, Chief Architectural Officer for Everbridge, the global leader in critical event management. “In an emergency such as a wildfire or hurricane, for example, people must have the confidence to answer an incoming call from local authorities to receive potentially life-saving instructions.”

To begin the end-to-end caller ID authentication, Everbridge and its enterprise clients first completed the Numeracle Verified Identity™ entity vetting and validation process. Verified Identity provides a compliance-based, know your customer (KYC) and customer due diligence solution used to validate the business identity and calling competency in support of the TRACED Act’s goal of ensuring the calling party is accurately identified.

Utilizing Numeracle’s Entity Identity Management™ platform, the relationship between the Everbridge Verified Identity enterprise, its authorized phone numbers, and its active relationship with outbound VoIP Service Provider, Twilio, was validated and certified. Branded Rich Call Data was associated with the Numeracle-validated enterprise call profile and pushed to the NetNumber Guaranteed Caller™ platform for issuance of a SHAKEN delegate certificate, and for use in call signing via Twilio as the originating service provider (OSP).

“Twilio eagerly participated in one of the first end-to-end caller ID authentications that successfully transmitted Branded Rich Call Data signed by a delegate certificate within the Public Switched Telephone Network,” said Jesper Joergensen, General Manager of Voice and Video for Twilio. “Since the ratification of the STIR/SHAKEN standard, Twilio has recognized the importance of KYC and authenticating direct and indirect customers in order to restore trust between businesses and consumers.”

Based on the receipt of the RCD signed call, Twilio was then able to confidentially and reliably sign the call with a SHAKEN signature using A-Level Attestation, the highest level of verification. Comcast then demonstrated the receipt and verification the RCD and STIR/SHAKEN signed call with the display of the Verified Identity of the Everbridge enterprise caller via Caller ID Name, brand logo, and call reason.

“We thank Comcast for understanding and investing in the challenges of STIR/SHAKEN enterprise call delivery through its active leadership role in the standards and development of the delegate certificate model,” said Rebekah Johnson, Founder and CEO, Numeracle. “The proof of concept we demonstrated here, through the participation of NetNumber, Everbridge, and Twilio, proves the collaborative ability to bridge the gap between the enterprise caller and the point of entry to STIR/SHAKEN call authentication so critical, legal, and wanted calls can be delivered without interruption to the consumer.”

Doug Ranalli, Founder and VP Products & Strategy – GDS, NetNumber added, “Beyond anything else, this proof of concept demonstrates the level of collaboration and cooperation needed across telecommunications providers to deliver end-to-end trust from enterprise to consumer across a full ecosystem of technology providers. By leveraging standards and supporting KYC requirements for service providers, we have actively employed technology to support legal callers and deny bad actors entry to the trust network.”