Criminals often are identified by their fingerprints. This goes for malicious robocalls as well as bank heists. Like physical criminals, digital bad players often can wipe their fingerprints clean. The cyber equivalent of wiping down the premises with a towel is robocalls going through older, non-IP networks, a situation the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) refers to as a “loophole” and plans to address
The STIR/SHAKEN caller ID authentication framework is a system for tracking, blocking, and warning consumers about malicious robocalls. A call’s digital fingerprint upon which the system relies is removed if the call passes through a non-IP technology, however.
That challenge is addressed by the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act. However, the FCC says that an authentication framework for non-IP robocalls has been delayed for four years. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) released today attempts to end the delays and, according to the press release, “opens the door for further improvements down the road.”
The FCC NPRM for robocalls is aimed at doing four things:
- Establishing criteria for evaluating whether frameworks meet the TRACED Act standards
- Suggesting that two existing frameworks meet those standards
- Eliciting comments on a third framework
- Requiring providers to regularly certify that their implementation meets TRACED Act standards
Providers would have two years to comply if the NPRM is adopted as final rules.
The first case under the TRACED Act’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) rules was in August 2021. The FCC proposed a $5,134,500 fine against John M. Burkman, Jacob Alexander Wohl, and J.M. Burkman & Associates LLC for allegedly making 1,141 unlawful robocalls to wireless phones without prior express consent.
This past February, the FCC broadened the use of reasonable do-not-originate lists to block robocalls that are highly likely to be illegal, for example, government phone numbers that do not make outbound calls. The rules also will ensure that legitimate callers learn when their calls are blocked to better correct erroneous blocking and help consumers continue to receive the calls that they want.
