Ajit Pai, the Federal Communications Commission Chairman, has proposed on adopting rules to ban spam calls and spoofing of text messages and robocalls that are mostly originated outside the U.S. More than 40 states attorneys have supported for the anti-spoofing rules that are needed to adopt.
The new rule is needed to close the loopholes in targeting international callers, including VoIP calls, and scammers using text messaging.
We must attack this problem with every tool we have, with these new rules, we’ll close the loopholes that hamstring law enforcement when they try to pursue international scammers and scammers using text messaging – Ajit Pai, Chairman, FCC
The spoofing technique makes use of false caller ID, pretending as the perpetrator is calling or texting from a nearby location to get the responded. According to Pai, the rules extend in the aim of increasing the truth in Caller ID Act to text messages or international calls that are intended under the passage of the Ray Baum’s Act last year.
FCC is also asking the providers to adopt new technologies that will verify callers’ ID on their networks by the end of this fall. Hopefully, these new spoofing rules would allow the FCC to enforce actions taken beyond the U.S and hence seize the foreign perpetrators. Earlier this year, FCC had warned about a one-ring scam that sought to bait consumers into calling the number back so that they could be billed toll charges.
