Robocalls have been bothering us a long time and it has recently been becoming more and more unbearable. Last year the number of robocalls reached 26 billion – a 46% increase comparing to the estimated robocalls in 2017. A bill regarding to nuisance calls is passed by the US Senate with 97 to 1 vote in the later of May. The bill, named TRACED (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence) Act, will lift the fine to $10,000 per robocall and extend the statute of limitations on robocalls from two to three years.
According to CNN politics, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer expressed that
“There’s very little more annoying to New Yorkers than being woken up in the dead of night by automated calls trying to scam them out of their hard-earned money,”
“The TRACED Act is just what we need to hang up on these nonstop robocalls, and the House should follow the Senate’s lead and pass it ASAP.”
Telecom companies are happy with the result. With this new regulation established, carriers will be able to implement robocall blocking technologies for customers automatically.
Screenshot from TransNexus
“American consumers are sick and tired of unwanted robocalls, this consumer among them. Caller ID authentication will be a significant step towards ending the scourge of spoofed robocalls. It’s time for carriers to implement robust caller ID authentication.” – FCC Chairman Ajit Pai
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who has demanded the phone industry to provide caller ID for the public in Nov 2018. Now SHAKEN/STIR, which stands for Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (SHAKEN) and the Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) standards, is developed by several carriers in the US. The system basically works as a real time caller ID authentication, recognizing incoming calls which are dialed by computers. As stated by ZDNet, It was first tested successfully in March this year, and FTC would like to apply the system by the end of 2019.
Besides the new technology and financial penalty, the TRACED act also aims to enhance cooperation between FCC, Federal Trade Commission, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to constantly improve the measures of anti robocalls and also prosecute offenders effectively.
Admittedly, the TRACED act and SHAKEN/STIR system would not stop robocalls completely, but combining the system and the newly introduced penalty will have a higher deterrent effect on dialing illegal robocalls. We hope that the service will be applied ASAP! In the meantime, you can also visit tellows website or our apps for number lookup or to rate and comment on suspicious phone numbers. We believe that the number of spam calls will decrease if we work hand in hand.
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tellows team
