FCC regulation called STIR/SHAKEN is cutting robocalls in US

July 29, 2022

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From the Good News/Bad News Dept., this item:

Bad News: In 2019, Americans received just over 58 billion — with a “b” — robocalls, according to a private analysis, the Federal Communications Commission announced. The year remains the peak year for robocalls in America.

Good News: In 2021, that number had dropped by 14%. It was partly because of new FCC regulations adopted in June 2021 that allowed the FCC to crack down on carriers that were allowing their users to “spoof” caller ID information so the call looks like it’s coming from the local area.

There are still a massive amount of robocalls being made. At 50 billion robocalls made in 2021, that amounts to about 165 calls a year to every smartphone in America. And I bet you think you got more than your fair share of them.

In spite of that, there is good news ahead. The major reduction in spam calls (the majority of which seemed to deal with trying to sell car warranties to people who didn’t need them), came about because of FCC regulations titled “STIR/SHAKEN.”

It’s probably one of the worst acronyms — or cleverest, depending on your point of view — ever, and it doesn’t help much to know that it stands for “Secure Telephony Identity Revisited’ and “Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENS.”

Suffice it to say that it refers to technology that can detect fraudulent robocalls and “spoofing” — a trick of changing the number as it shows up on Caller ID so it appears to originate from another telephone number, perhaps a well-known one, or an actual number for the Internal Revenue Service.

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The FCC began requiring major phone providers to begin using the protocols by June 30, 2021. As they were implemented, the number of illegitimate calls began to drop. It just doesn’t seem so because there are so many billions of them.

Last month, the FCC announced a major victory. The commission mandated U.S. providers block all calls originating from the Sumco Panama company. The FCC said the company had been responsible for hawking auto warranties by generating more than 8 billion robocalls in the United States since 2018.

In making the announcement, FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel indicated that this was only the beginning for the agency: “We are not going to tolerate robocall scammers or those that help make their scams possible,” she said, adding, “Consumers are out of patience and I’m right there with them.”

She also noted that auto-warranty scams “are one of the top complaints we get from consumers and it’s time to hold those responsible for making these junk calls.”

Rosenworcel went on to say that part of the problem is that while the FCC can assess fines, the agency cannot collect the fines. That job is handed over to the U.S. Department of Justice. And in many cases, that has resulted in a maximum fine turning into a minimal annoyance.

In mid-July, the FCC announced it was imposing a $116 million fine on one robocalling company, but Rosenworcel expressed doubt that the agency would see the entire amount. “This fine is big,” she said in a press release. “But it also calls attention to the fact that we need new rules of the game.”

In 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported that the FCC has issued $208.4 million in fines against robocallers since 2015. The amount collected, however, was only $6,790.

The Journal concluded that the low percentage of collection resulted because the FCC lacked the power to enforce its fines.

On June 30, the FCC reminded small carriers that they, too, must comply with the requirements of STIR/SHAKEN. Robocalling companies had been moving to those smaller carriers as the STIR/SHAKEN protocols were implemented by the larger telephone providers.

The FCC moved the effective date of the implementation up a year for the small carriers when it was determined that the robocalling companies were taking advantage of the extended period to evade the regulations.

A billion calls stopped here. Another billion stopped there. Pretty soon, we’ll be making real progress.

Lonnie Brown can be reached at LedgerDatabase@aol.com.

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FCC regulation called STIR/SHAKEN is cutting robocalls in US

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