The Federal Communications Commission today proposed to impose stronger “know your customer” requirements on voice service providers that originate calls, as part of an effort to crack down on illegal scam calls. The FCC is scheduled to vote on whether to issue the draft proposal at its April 30 open meeting.
The American Bankers Association and consumer advocacy groups have called on the FCC to require voice service providers to take specific actions to verify the identity of callers in order to shore up the existing call authentication framework – commonly known as the ‘STIR/SHAKEN’ framework – to better protect consumers against fraud. The proposed rule would assess penalties on service providers for violations of the KYC rule on a per-call basis “to best correlate penalties to the volume of illegal calls made, and thus the harm caused by any one caller,” according to the FCC.
In a statement, ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols commended FCC Chairman Carr and the commission for bringing the proposal forward. He noted that ABA had previously shared data showing how bad actors are increasingly placing illegally spoofed calls despite the existing ‘STIR/SHAKEN’ call authentication framework.
“This new proposal can help protect consumers from fraud by requiring voice service providers to do more to verify the authenticity of a caller before allowing a call to be placed,” Nichols said. “We look forward to the commission’s consideration of this proposal at its April meeting and to seeing it finalized.”
