Highway pitches shared standards as freight fraud shifts

Cargo thieves are exploiting the space between brokers and carriers by impersonating carriers, intercepting load data, and redirecting shipments. Highway, a company selling carrier identity and vetting tools to freight brokers, recognizes this trend and believes that shared standards for data brokers use to choose carriers are necessary.

Highway's chief commercial officer, Michael Caney, claims that no single vendor can address these gaps, and that freight requires shared standards. Highway currently manages data on more than 1.5 million loads and offers performance guarantees, providing $100,000 if a broker follows Highway's recommendations and the load is still stolen.

Highway has covered over a million loads under this guarantee and lost only one. Caney describes the expanded "shared accountability model" as starting from who touches a load, counting five parties involved instead of the traditional two (broker and carrier). These parties include the insurance agent and insurer, factoring company, and telematics provider.

Caney highlights gaps in insurance and factoring data, stating that carriers and factoring companies have little incentive to ensure the safety of freight due to the lack of accountability. Highway aims to solve these issues by creating a network of certified providers that agree to stand behind their data, starting with Highway Certified Insurance Agencies.

However, the industry's push for standards follows where fraud has gone, shifting from rules to process. Caney warns about social engineering threats, such as voice AI used to manipulate brokers into sending load information to fraudulent email addresses. Highway is addressing these gaps by setting integration requirements beyond FMCSA registration for ELD data and establishing standards for other service providers. However, there is resistance from providers who may not welcome such levels of accountability.