ATTORNEY GENERAL RAOUL CALLS ON FCC TO STRENGTHEN VETTING PROCESS TO BLOCK ROBOCALLERS

ATTORNEY GENERAL RAOUL CALLS ON FCC TO STRENGTHEN VETTING PROCESS TO BLOCK ROBOCALLERS

November 14, 2024

Chicago - Attorney General Kwame Raoul, with the attorneys general of Arkansas, North Carolina and Ohio, led a bipartisan coalition of 46 attorneys general calling on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to improve its Robocall Mitigation Database (RMD) and close an unmonitored loophole that bad actors exploit to access the U.S. telephone network.

"Robocalls cost consumers time and money and violate their privacy, and the FCC provides critical federal protections that enhance state efforts to address the problem," Raoul said. "I am urging the FCC to improve its Robocall Mitigation Database to increase accountability as we all work to reduce the illegal and intrusive robocalls that plague the people of Illinois and around the country."

Telecommunications providers must register on the FCC's database to operate as voice service providers in the United States. However, since it went live in 2021, the RMD has done little to prevent bad actors from obtaining legitimate registrations to send illegal robocalls through the U.S. telephone network. Companies have submitted non-vetted information, and voice service providers have faced no real consequences for filing inaccurate, false, misleading or otherwise incomplete information.

In their comments, Raoul and the coalition call on the FCC to strengthen the RMD so providers understand the information they are required to submit and the deadlines by which it must be submitted, to validate the data providers submit to flag inaccurate or misleading data, and to penalize providers for submitting false or inadequate information by preventing them from receiving authorization to operate and blocking non-compliant providers. If adopted, the proposed changes would make it harder for bad actors to gain access to the entire U.S. telephone network and would stop more illegal robocalls from reaching people in the United States.

Attorney General Raoul has been a consistent advocate for protections against illegal robocalls. He is a member of the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force and the Robocall Mitigation Working Group. He has been committed to actively investigating and pursuing enforcement actions against entities in the robocall ecosystem that are identified as being responsible for significant volumes of illegal and fraudulent robocall traffic routed into and across the country.

Additionally, in 2022, Raoul joined a coalition of 33 attorneys general in filing a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court defending the anti-robocall provisions of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. In August 2019, Raoul joined a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from all 50 states and Washington D.C. in partnering with 12 phone companies to create a set of principles for telecom companies to fight robocalls. In June 2019, Raoul, in cooperation with the Federal Trade Commission, announced a major crackdown on robocalls that included 94 actions targeting operations around the country that were responsible for more than 1 billion calls. Raoul has also submitted comments to the FCC urging the adoption of various proposed rules aimed at cracking down on unwanted telemarketing calls.

Joining Attorney General Raoul in sending the letter are the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.