Restoring Trust Through Global Collaboration: Highlights from the Restore Trust Initiative Webinar

During a recent webinar hosted by OneConsortium, leaders across the telecom, regulatory and law enforcement communities came together to review the status of their work aimed at a shared challenge: restoring trust in communications while reducing the misuse of telecom networks for spam and scams.

The Restore Trust Initiative is built around two connected pillars:

• OneConsortium: Bringing together the global industry.

• Global Informal Regulatory Antifraud Forum (GIRAF): Creating a global forum for telecom regulators.

Together, they are working to develop practical, more consistent recommendations that can help the ecosystem prevent, detect, stop and trace fraudulent activity across jurisdictions.

The discussion featured industry leaders from across the communications ecosystem, including:

• Philippe Millet, Chair, OneConsortium

• Martin Kähl, Europol’s European Cyber Crime Center

• Keith Buell, Numeracle

• Melissa Blassingame, Twilio

• Katia Gonzalez, Somos and Vice Chair of OneConsortium

• Thomas Sunesson, Bandwidth

• Linda Vandeloop, Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS)

• Steve Buck, BTS

• Stacy Graham, Sinch

• Tim French, Wavecrest

Speakers shared updates and perspectives on several critical industry initiatives, including:

• Know Your Customer (KYC)

• Caller ID spoofing mitigation

• Traceback efforts

• Digital identity

• Messaging security

• Industry tools and best practices

• Regulatory developments and compliance

For Somos, the conversation reinforced a familiar truth: trust in communications depends on cooperation, transparency and the ability to understand who is using telephone numbers and for what purpose, across an increasingly complex global ecosystem.

A Global Problem That Requires a Global Response

Philippe Millet opened the webinar by describing the telecom ecosystem as both an essential enabler of digital life and, when abused, a powerful multiplier for fraud. Because fraudsters rely on telecom resources to reach victims, the industry has a responsibility to help prevent, detect, stop and trace fraud.

That work cannot happen in isolation. The telecom ecosystem includes thousands of players, making alignment across industry, regulators, law enforcement and other sectors essential. The Restore Trust Initiative is designed to support that alignment through industry-led work, regulatory collaboration and shared recommendations.

Key Takeaways from the Discussion

Several themes stood out across the webinar:

• Spoofing requires global coordination. Martin Kähl noted that spoofing is easy to deploy but difficult to investigate across borders, underscoring the need for technical harmonization, regulatory alignment and standardized data.
   

• KYC can help stop bad actors earlier. Keith Buell and Melissa Blassingame emphasized that KYC must be risk-based and adaptive, with attention to identity verification, right to use a brand or telephone number, restricted-party screening, downstream KYC practices and traffic behavior.
   

• Legitimate communications must be protected. Katia Gonzalez highlighted the need to target malicious CLI (calling line identification or caller ID) spoofing without disrupting legitimate roaming, cloud, virtual and enterprise international communications.
   

• Cloud communications need modern policy approaches. Thomas Sunesson urged regulators to focus on fraud, not restrict legitimate services such as global contact centers, number anonymity, crisis hotlines and app-based transportation services amongst others.
   

• Traceback depends on collaboration. Linda Vandeloop pointed to traceback as an effective anti-fraud tool that requires timely industry action, regulator support, enforcement partnerships and workable cross-border processes.
   

• Digital identity can strengthen confidence. Steve Buck described digital identity as a way to connect a number to the entity using it through vetting, identity binding, independent checks and user trust signals ultimately ensuring the receiver knows who is originating the communication.
   

• Trust cannot be solved in silos; it must be addressed across channels. Stacy Graham noted that consumers simply want to trust the messages they receive, making harmonized approaches across platforms essential. 
   

Moving Forward Together

The webinar closed with a clear call for continued participation. Restoring trust is not the responsibility of one organization, region or sector. It requires industry, regulators, law enforcement and adjacent sectors to work together on practical frameworks that can be adopted across a fragmented global ecosystem.

As fraud tactics continue to evolve, collaboration grounded in trusted data and shared accountability will be essential to protecting consumers and helping businesses connect with confidence.

To learn more about the Restore Trust Initiative, watch the on-demand webinar recording from OneConsortium.

Interested in learning more about Somos’ work to strengthen trusted communications? Reach out to a Somos team member at connect@somos.com.