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Robocalls, What is Being Done to Combat Them?
President Trump signed into law the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act which requires wireless carriers to authenticate calls and block robocalls at the discretion of their customers. Any violators can be fined up to $10,000 per call.
The TRACED Act also requires major domestic phone carriers to use STIR/SHAKEN technology, which will require them to sync data in real-time to protect their customers and display only legitimate calls.
The following is taken directly from the FCC website:
What Does STIR/SHAKEN Mean?
STIR/SHAKEN is a framework of interconnected standards. STIR/SHAKEN are acronyms for the Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) and Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (SHAKEN) standards. This means that calls traveling through interconnected phone networks would have their caller ID “signed” as legitimate by originating carriers and validated by other carriers before reaching consumers. STIR/SHAKEN digitally validates the handoff of phone calls passing through the complex web of networks, allowing the phone company of the consumer receiving the call to verify that a call is in fact from the number displayed on the Caller ID.
What Is the FCC Doing?
FCC rules require providers to implement STIR/SHAKEN in the Internet Protocol (IP) portions of their networks by June 30, 2021, so that Americans can benefit from this important technology and start to have faith in their phone calls again. In September 2020, the FCC further implemented Congressional direction from the Pallone-Thune Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (TRACED Act) and adopted more rules to ensure that even those providers unable to implement STIR/SHAKEN right away are still taking steps to protect their customers from illegal robocalls.
As of April 20, 2021, the FCC requires that all providers certify in the Robocall Mitigation Database that they have fully implemented STIR/SHAKEN or have instituted a robocall mitigation program to ensure that they are not originating illegal robocalls. All providers are required to submit to this public database the contact information for the personnel at their company responsible for robocall-mitigation-related issues. And those providers certifying their implementation of a robocall mitigation program are required to include descriptions of the reasonable steps they are taking to avoid originating illegal robocall traffic. Filings in the Robocall Mitigation Database are due June 30, 2021. Finally, because the STIR/SHAKEN framework is only operational on IP networks, Commission rules also require providers using older forms of network technology to either upgrade their networks to IP or actively work to develop a caller ID authentication solution that is operational on non-IP networks.
The problem is that when I search the Robocall Mitigation Database as of Sept 9th, 2021, only one of the major carriers has fully implemented the STIR/SHAKEN technology.
- Verizon Wireless – Partial STIR/SHAKEN Implementation – Performing Robocall Mitigation
- T-Mobile/Sprint – Complete STIR/SHAKEN Implementation
- AT&T Mobility – Partial STIR/SHAKEN Implementation – Performing Robocall Mitigation
As a Verizon Wireless customer, I’m still getting the robocalls.
