Robocall Fighting Legislation Signed into Law

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Robocall Fighting Legislation Signed into Law
January 10, 2020

The two main tools in the fight against illegal robocalls and spoofed calls – STIR/SHAKEN and call blocking – were cemented into federal legislation at the end of December when the president signed the Pallone-Thune Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (TRACED Act). The legislation directs the FCC to fully implement call blocking, STIR/SHAKEN and a variety of other robocall relief stipulations which Congress included in the TRACED Act.

Until now, these efforts were strongly suggested but voluntary for service providers. But now that this law has been enacted, carriers should be preparing for new rules and requirements to implement these anti-robocalling responses.

STIR/SHAKEN
STIR/SHAKEN, or the Secure Telephone Identity Revisited and Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using Tokens, are standards to confirm that the caller ID information that appears on consumers’ phones is accurate and any unverified calls are flagged or blocked.

The TRACED Act requires providers of voice service to have implemented STIR/SHAKEN or be capable of fully implementing STIR/SHAKEN for calls on their internet protocol (IP) networks within 18 months and agree to voluntarily participate with other voice providers in the STIR/SHAKEN authentication framework.

For non-IP networks, voice service providers must take reasonable measures to implement an effective call authentication framework or have the capability of fully implementing an effective call authentication framework in their non-IP networks within 18 months of the law’s enactment.

Call Blocking
The Act also directs the FCC to take a final agency action by December 30, 2020, to ensure that carriers implement robocall blocking services which:

  • Are provided on an opt-out or opt-in basis;
  • Are provided with no additional line item charge to consumers and no additional charge to callers for resolving complaints related to erroneously blocked calls; and
  • Make all reasonable efforts to avoid blocking emergency public safety calls.

The Act establishes additional requirements for service providers and FCC actions.

JSI will summarize and discuss the TRACED Act during the next LNP Essentials interactive web session on January 22. For more information on the Act, robocall mitigation efforts, or the LNP Essentials Bundle, please contact one of our experts by clicking the button below.

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