WASHINGTON (CN) — A panel of legal experts and technology executives told the Senate on Tuesday that more action is needed to ensure that illegal phone scams and other fraudulent voice and text communications are relegated to the do-not-call list of history.
Washington has for decades tried to stem the tide of robocalls and other phone scams that extort billions of dollars out of the American public every year. Most recently, Congress in 2019 passed the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act, aimed at giving federal regulators an expanded arsenal to combat phone scammers.
The measure, abbreviated as the TRACED Act, required that the Federal Communications Commission implement a caller ID verification tool allowing phone companies to ensure that the displayed identification number on a phone call matches the phone number in use. The mechanism is designed to deter a criminal method known as spoofing, which tricks unwitting victims into answering phone calls that appear to be coming from familiar locations.
Under the 2019 law, the FCC also established a suite of consumer protection tools, such as greater transparency between consumers and phone companies that block illegal calls.
Despite these efforts, however, a group of experts told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation during a hearing Tuesday that little progress has been made to shield Americans from phone scams.
“The current regulatory structure allows criminals access to Americans’ wallets,” said Margot Saunders, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. “At the same time, the combination of scam calls, along with the onslaught of illegal and unwanted telemarketing calls, have damaged our trust in our phones and made it more difficult for legitimate messages to reach us.”
The FCC’s methods for solving this problem have so far been unsuccessful, Saunders said, pointing out that the annual number of combined scam attempts, telemarketing, and other unwanted calls has remained relatively unchanged since 2019.
“Either the FCC does not have sufficient legal tools to stop the calls or it has not yet determined how to deploy those tools effectively,” she said.
Josh Bercu, executive director of Industry Traceback Group, which helps voice service providers track down illegal robocalls, painted a slightly brighter picture. Scam robocalls, which peaked in October 2019, have come down by more than half, he said.
Auto warranty scam calls, which became the stuff of internet legend in 2022, have almost completely ceased, Bercu added.
Both witnesses and lawmakers also expressed concern about how evolving technology such as artificial intelligence could make it harder to rein in phone scammers.
“Automated robocalls and robotexts are using chatbots and generative artificial intelligence to impersonate a real person,” said New Mexico Senator Ben Ray Lujan, “lulling the recipient into a false sense of security by mimicking voices and mannerisms.”
AI technology is becoming part of the “cat and mouse game” between regulators and criminals seeking new ways to skirt federal phone scamming laws, said Mike Rudolph, chief technology officer at anti-robocall service YouMail.
It’s not the first time the Senate has grappled with AI’s role in scam activity. The Senate Judiciary Committee heard in June from an Arizona woman who testified that she had nearly been extorted out of $50,000 by criminals using an AI model to imitate her daughter’s voice.
Meanwhile, the witnesses at Tuesday’s hearing agreed that Congress needs to ensure the FCC has the tools it needs to effectively combat phone scammers.
A major issue with the current regulations, Saunders explained, is that there is little incentive for voice service providers to comply with FCC guidelines, since they make money on robocalls and scam calls.
“Illegal robocalls with continue so long as those initiating and facilitating them can get away with it and profit from it,” she said, quoting FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. “To eliminate these calls, there must be incentives for compliance, which there are not currently.”
The federal communications authority should be allowed to suspend voice service providers who repeatedly host scam callers, Saunders said. “We think that would be a magic bullet.”
Saunders also suggested the FCC reiterate its current regulations that bar telemarketers from calling phones without written consent.
Telemarketers ignore these regulations, she said, and defend themselves against enforcement by using fabricated consent agreements or old consent documents that are sold and resold by telemarketing firms.
“The FCC could eliminate this entire business model by simply reiterating its current regulations,” Saunders said.
Megan Brown, a telecommunications lawyer testifying on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, added that Congress should urge the Justice Department to enforce robocalls and phone scammers more aggressively. The agency should use mail and wire fraud laws to pursue its own cases against more serious offenders rather than relying on referrals from the FCC, she argued.
“The failure to solve this problem is not a matter of technology,” Saunders said. “It is a question of whether the people in power actually want to solve it.”
The Federal Trade Commission in July announced that it was undertaking a sweeping enforcement effort to crack down on illegal telemarketers and robocalls. Working in conjunction with state and federal law enforcement agencies, the FTC said that it had brought more than 150 cases against illegal robocallers and took aim at five companies it said were perpetrators of such activity.
The legislative push against robocalls goes back decades — Congress in 1991 passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which laid initial restrictions on the use of automated phone calls. The bill also established the famed “do not call” list, requiring companies to honor requests from consumers not to be contacted over a five-year period.
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