The Federal Communications Commission recently announced new efforts that would require phone service providers to be held accountable for allowing robocalls. People across the United States are reporting a steady increase in automated phone calls to an assortment of customers. Some of these calls come from legitimate businesses. However, others often look to scam consumers for money or private information. Some studies estimate that users received 4.1 billion robocalls in January 2021.
The increase has drawn concern from many people. While some businesses have received fines, most calls are still untraceable, which means that the Federal Trade Commission and FCC cannot regulate them. As a result, the FCC announced the creation of the Robocall Mitigation Database to regulate robocalls by placing pressure on phone companies instead of the state.
The database is an extension of the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act, or the TRACED Act, a bill former President Donald Trump signed into law in December 2019. The bill initially demanded that voice providers develop technology to authenticate calls and expand FCC authority over robocall providers. Throughout 2020, the FCC passed several measures that would help set the standard for phone providers, including increasing the fines for intentional robocall violations to $10,000 per violation and removing the need for the FCC to warn a potential violator about the fee before issuing it.
One of the most significant changes that the FCC passed is ‘STIR/SHAKEN.’ These two protocols eliminate another user’s account’s potential ‘spoofing.’ A phone scammer can mimic any known number, such as one’s home number or even the White House, and call a user due to a lack of caller ID security in most networks. STIR would require the voice provider to examine the caller ID and compare it to a known list of IDs that the user has followed by the attachment of an encrypted certificate that verifies the identity. SHAKEN does something similar in that it provides rules for handling mobile phones or calls lacking STIR information.
Phone companies will have until September 2021 to register their anti-robocall efforts, including adopting STIR/SHAKEN protocols.
“Protecting consumers from scammers that use robocall and spoofing tools is a top priority,” the FCC’s acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wrote in a press release. “To succeed, we not only need an all-hands-on-deck response from the government, but we need industry commitment and focus. Our message to providers is clear: certify under penalty of perjury the steps you are taking to stop illegal robocalls, or we will block your calls.”
While technology experts initially praised the TRACED Act, it is unclear if it has significantly changed the state of robocalls.
“There have been several intersecting factors: COVID, the increased use of the STIR/SHAKEN technology, the increased use of call-blocking technologies by some phone companies,” Margot Saunders, a senior counsel at the National Consumer Law Center, told the Washington Examiner. “At the same time, the number of complaints to the FTC has remained about the same in the last two years.”
While the FCC’s initiatives sound promising, the announcement as it stands does not make the direct effects clear. Saunders said there are still “big openings in the telephone system in the U.S. that allow callers to make robocalls and remain untraceable.” The database may encourage phone companies to adopt better protocols. However, it is unclear how the FCC would penalize companies for failing to do so.
