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Trust has always been fundamental to voice communications. For many years, if a call connected and the number looked familiar, people naturally assumed it was genuine. However, as voice fraud has become more sophisticated, maintaining that trust has become increasingly challenging.
Spoofing, automation and AI-assisted fraud are making it easier for bad actors to impersonate trusted organisations and exploit gaps in traditional verification processes. As a result, communications providers across the industry are looking at new ways to strengthen trust, improve accountability and protect customers.
This blog explores why traditional Know Your Customer (KYC) processes remain essential but are no longer sufficient on their own. It examines how combining customer verification with ongoing monitoring of network activity, often referred to as Know Your Traffic (KYT), can help providers build more resilient voice services, meet evolving regulatory expectations and create a safer communications environment for everyone.
At Colt, we see trust as a continuous process rather than a one-time event. That's why our Voice Trust & Identity approach combines robust customer onboarding with ongoing traffic validation, helping customers and partners operate confidently in an increasingly complex voice landscape.
The changing nature of voice fraud
Voice fraud is not a new challenge, but its scale and sophistication continue to evolve.
• Nearly 20 billion calls were flagged globally as spam or fraud during the first half of 2024 alone.
• In some European markets, more than half of unknown calls are considered unwanted or potentially fraudulent.
• Caller ID spoofing and phone-based social engineering continue to cause significant financial losses for businesses and consumers worldwide.
As these threats grow, regulators, operators and enterprises are increasingly focusing on a key question: how can trust be established earlier in the communications chain?
For wholesale and network providers, this means looking beyond simply connecting traffic and developing greater confidence in who is using their services and how those services are being used.
Understanding how voice networks are being exploited
Today's fraud campaigns are often highly organised and designed to operate at scale. Common techniques include:
• Caller ID spoofing to impersonate banks, public sector organisations or recognised brands.
• International traffic presented as local calls to increase answer rates.
• SMS and voice combinations that use text messages to encourage recipients to trust a follow-up call.
• Social engineering attacks designed to obtain credentials, trigger payments or compromise accounts.
These tactics can be difficult to identify because, on the surface, much of the traffic appears legitimate.
Why traditional approaches have limitations
Global voice networks were designed to prioritise interoperability and connectivity. While that has enabled the growth of international communications, it has also created challenges when it comes to verifying identity across multiple operators and jurisdictions.
Historically, customer verification processes focused on onboarding. Once a customer had been approved and connected to the network, there was often limited visibility into whether traffic continued to align with the customer's stated purpose.
As fraud techniques have evolved, providers have recognised the need for a more continuous approach to trust.
Moving from identity verification to identity assurance
This is where the relationship between KYC and KYT becomes increasingly important.
KYC helps answer a fundamental question: Who is using the network?
It provides the foundation for compliance, due diligence and customer accountability.
KYT builds on that foundation by asking: Is network activity consistent with what was originally declared?
By combining the two, providers can strengthen the link between customer identity and network behaviour.
Rather than relying solely on information gathered during onboarding, they gain ongoing visibility that can help identify unusual patterns before they become larger issues.
How KYC and KYT work together
At Colt, we view KYC and KYT as complementary components of a broader trust framework.
Together, they can help providers:
• Associate calling rights and numbering resources with verified organisations.
• Validate traffic against declared use cases.
• Improve visibility of network activity.
• Investigate issues more quickly when concerns arise.
• Reduce opportunities for repeated abuse.
The goal is not to create unnecessary barriers for legitimate customers. Instead, it is to help ensure that trust established during onboarding is maintained throughout the customer relationship.
Responding to evolving regulatory expectations
Across Europe and other international markets, regulators are placing greater emphasis on proactive measures to reduce fraudulent communications.
This includes initiatives such as:
• Limiting spoofed caller IDs.
• Reducing misuse of national numbering ranges.
• Protecting sensitive telephone numbers from unauthorised use.
• Encouraging providers to identify and address potentially harmful traffic earlier.
These developments reflect a broader industry shift toward improving customer confidence in voice communications.
For providers, demonstrating effective controls is becoming an important part of maintaining trusted relationships with customers, partners and regulators alike.
What effective voice trust looks like
There is no single solution to preventing voice fraud, but successful approaches increasingly combine multiple layers of protection.
These typically include:
• Strong KYC and business verification processes.
• Clear customer use-case validation.
• Authorised management of CLI ranges and numbering resources.
• Continuous monitoring aligned to customer profiles.
• Risk-based intervention when unusual activity is detected.
• Regular review and adaptation as threats evolve.
The objective is not perfection. It is to create a framework that continuously reduces risk while supporting legitimate communications.
Building a more trusted voice ecosystem
The voice industry is entering a new phase where trust is becoming a differentiator.
Providers that can demonstrate strong identity and traffic controls are better positioned to strengthen customer confidence, support compliance requirements and foster trusted interconnect relationships.
We’re helping customers navigate this transition through a Voice Trust & Identity framework that combines rigorous onboarding with ongoing traffic assurance. By bringing identity and behaviour together, we can help create a more transparent, resilient and trusted communications environment.
The bottom line
KYC remains a vital part of protecting voice networks and establishing customer trust. But in today's threat landscape, identity verification alone is no longer enough.
Building trust now requires a broader approach, one that combines customer verification with ongoing visibility into how network services are being used.
By bringing KYC and KYT together, providers can strengthen trust, improve accountability and better protect the integrity of voice communications.
If you're reselling voice services or looking to strengthen trust across your communications environment, speak to one of Colt's voice specialists to learn how our voice solutions can help you deliver secure, compliant and trusted services to your customers.
Kevin Little, Product Manager, Voice Compliance, Colt Technology Services
