What Is The TRACED Act, And Will It Stop Robocalls? CallStop Follow Jan 10 · 3 min read

Congress recently enacted the TRACED act, a body of legislation aimed at giving the FCC greater authority to go after robocallers. Last year alone, Americans received 48 billion robocalls. Here’s what you need to know about the TRACED Act — and whether we think it will actually stop robocalls.

In no particular order, here’s what’s in the bill:

Firstly, the TRACED act extends the statute of limitations for robocall offenses. This means the FCC can hold robocallers liable for a longer period of time — allowing them to prosecute older cases. Carriers need to implement a technology called SHAKEN/STIR to authenticate incoming calls. Think of SHAKEN/STIR as proof that a caller really is who they say they are. Under the hood, carriers use digital signatures as proof. You may have already seen a “Caller Verified” badge on some calls if you have an iPhone, and that’s SHAKEN/STIR in action. This will prevent people from pretending to be calling from other numbers, a common scam tactic. It’s seems likely that in 30 years all calls will require authentication via this method, and that those that don’t will be automatically blocked. But it’s the early stages and we’re only just seeing SHAKEN/STIR rolling out. The FCC isn’t allowing carriers to charge for the addition of SHAKEN/STIR technology, while preventing carriers from being liable for innocent mistakes when deploying the technology. The act allows the Justice Department, in addition to the FCC, to prosecute offenders. The act requires annual reports of ongoing studies and progress to Congress on the status and progress on the above.

Will The TRACED Act Work?

In our opinion, the TRACED act will help with prosecuting robocallers, but it’s won’t stop them. Here’s why:

Robocallers often hide behind foreign numbers and shell companies, making it hard to locate them. A lot of robocallers are in foreign countries, making them more or less out of reach of US law. You’ve probably regularly seen calls from places like Liberia, China, and other faraway places. The economics of robocalls are still profitable, because spammers and scammers can rotate numbers once their original numbers get blocked or flagged. The minute one robocaller gets caught, another takes their place.

In our opinion, while the TRACED Act will help block robocalls, it won’t solve the underlying problem of robocalls. SHAKEN/STIR is a step in the right direction, but callers need more comprehensive ways to filter out robocalls.

This is why at CallStop, we’ve built a way to block 100% of spam calls and spam voicemails with an app that’s quick and easy to set up. Try CallStop for free on the App Store here and visit our website here.

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