FCC looks to mandate anti-robocall tech after prodding from Congress

FCC looks to mandate anti-robocall tech after prodding from Congress

The FCC is finally going to require wireless carriers to implement an anti-robocalling technology, after asking them nicely for more than a year to do so at their convenience. Of course, the FCC itself is now required to do this after Congress got tired of waiting on them and took action itself.


The technology is called Secure Telephony Identity Revisited / Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs, mercifully abbreviated to STIR/SHAKEN, and amounts to a sort of certificate authority for calls that prevents phone numbers from being spoofed. (This is a good technical breakdown if you’re curious.)


STIR/SHAKEN has been talked about for quite some time as a major part of the fight against robocalls, and in 2018 FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said that carriers would have until the end of 2019 to implement it. 2019 came and went, and while the FCC (and indeed carriers) took other actions against robocallers, STIR/SHAKEN went largely undeployed.

Meanwhile, Congress, perhaps tired of receiving scam calls th ..

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