Difference between revisions of "Robocalls"

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There are many ethical concerns revolving around robocalls, mainly due to the potential for scammers to impersonate companies, charities, or government entities. Roughly 59.4 million Americans lost money due to scam robocalls in 2021 alone.<ref>https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/29/americans-lost-billions-of-dollars-to-phone-scams-over-the-past-year.html</ref> New legislation and technology has emerged to combat robocalls.
 
There are many ethical concerns revolving around robocalls, mainly due to the potential for scammers to impersonate companies, charities, or government entities. Roughly 59.4 million Americans lost money due to scam robocalls in 2021 alone.<ref>https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/29/americans-lost-billions-of-dollars-to-phone-scams-over-the-past-year.html</ref> New legislation and technology has emerged to combat robocalls.
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=== History ===
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==== Dinner Time Telemarketing ====
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Telemarketing calls during the late 80s and 90s consisted of real people calling to try and sell a product or service.<ref>https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/podcast/robocalls</ref> Dialers at this time were manually operated and required a person on the other end to play a prerecorded message.<ref>"Phone does its own dialing when lever pushed" Popular Mechanics, February 1942, p. 70.</ref> At this time making robocalls was very expensive.<ref>https://www.tryfirewall.com/blog/robocalls</ref>
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==== Tony Inocentes ====
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In January 1983, Tony Inocentes used robocall technology he designed to announce his candidacy for the 57th Assembly District in California. In 1989, he created robocall software for debt collecting agencies. In 2001, he also invented political robopolling.<ref>https://gtb.net/why-gtb/blog/robocalls-%E2%80%93-everything-you-need-know#:~:text=The%20man%20behind%20robocalls%20is,by%20debt%20collectors%20at%20large.</ref>
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=== Ethical Implications ===
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==== Scams ====
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Robocalls are the top consumer complaint reported annually to the FCC.<ref>https://www.fcc.gov/TRACEDAct</ref> In 2022, 68.4M Americans (26%) reported losing money from phone scams with robocalls scamming 61.1% of those individuals. Many of the individuals harmed by robocall scams are elderly and of hispanic background.<ref>https://www.truecaller.com/blog/insights/truecaller-insights-2022-us-spam-scam-report</ref> The scammers purchase phone numbers from lead brokers and pay small phone service providers to place their calls.<ref>https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2020/how-do-robocalls-work.html</ref> Robocall scams often impersonate companies, charities, or government entities in an attempt to receive an individual’s personal information or money.
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Spoofing technology has made impersonation easier for scammers by allowing changes to be made to caller IDs. <ref>https://us.norton.com/blog/online-scams/what-is-a-robocall#</ref> One form of spoofing is called neighbor spoofing in which scammers will mask a caller ID with a local number to impersonate a neighbor or nearby company. Spoofed robocalls will use prerecorded scam scripts to confuse individuals into giving up personal information or money.<ref>https://www.fcc.gov/spoofing</ref>
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Other forms of robocall scams are ‘one-ring’ scams. In these scams, robocalls are used to call several individuals for only ‘one-ring’, with the goal of having a potential victim call the number back and be charged connecting and per-minute fees. The robocalls may be spoofed to impersonate a U.S. based call while actually being made internationally.<ref>https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/one-ring-phone-scam</ref>
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=== Combating Robocalls ===
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==== Telephone Consumer Protection Act and Telemarketing Sales Rule ====
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Both the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and Telemarketing Sales Rule regulate telemarketing calls, with variations in what entity enforces the rules outlined in these two documents.
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In 1991, Congress passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA), which restricted the use of calls with automated dialing systems and prerecorded messages without consent. Calls exempt from the restrictions are those that are not made for commercial purposes, and commercial calls so long as they do not affect the party’s privacy or include unsolicited advertisements. The TCPA entrusted the delegation of rules to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).<ref>https://www.fcc.gov/general/telemarketing-and-robocalls#:~:text=In%20an%20effort%20to%20address,artificial%20or%20prerecorded%20voice%20messages</ref> After being adopted in 1992, one such rule the FCC made was that companies keep their own specific do-not-call registries.
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FCC rules regarding the TCPA were revised in 2012 to require telemarketers:
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“(1) to obtain prior express written consent from consumers before robocalling them, (2) to no longer use an "established business relationship" to avoid getting consent from consumers when their home phones, and (3) to provide an automated, interactive "opt-out" mechanism during each robocall so consumers can immediately tell the telemarketer to stop calling.” (13) The TCPA was further revised on July 2015 when the FCC released the TCPA Declaratory Ruling and Order which allows telephone service providers to offer robocall blocking to customers."<ref>https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2008/08/ftc-issues-final-telemarketing-sales-rule-amendments-regarding-prerecorded-calls</ref>
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The Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), effective on September 1, 2009, is enforced by the Federal Trades Commission (FTC). The TSR prohibits telemarketing robocalls unless the recipient has given written consent. The TSR also states that any robocall must: “1) allow the telephone to ring for at least 15 seconds or four rings before an unanswered call is disconnected; 2) begin the prerecorded message within two seconds of a completed greeting by the consumer who answers; 3) disclose at the outset of the call that the recipient may ask to be placed on the company's do-not-call list at any time during the message; 4) in cases where the call is answered by a person, make an automated interactive voice and/or keypress-activated opt-out mechanism available during the message that adds the phone number to the company's do-not-call list and then immediately ends the call; and 5) in cases where the call is answered by an answering machine or voicemail, provide a toll-free number that allows the person called to be connected to an automated interactive voice and/or keypress-activated opt-out mechanism anytime after the message is received”.<ref>https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/do-not-call-registry/robocalls</ref><ref>file:///Users/vanessaruiz/Downloads/FCC-03-153A1%20(1).pdf</ref>
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==== National Do-Not-Call Registry ====
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Growing use of auto dialers for telemarketing purposes after 1992 prompted the Federal Trades Commission to establish a national Do-Not-Call Registry in 2003 to allow for better compliance of TCPA guidelines. The registry consists of a list of phone numbers, maintained by the federal government, whose owners have expressed they do not want to receive telemarketing calls. The list does not cover the exemptions listed in the TCPA.<ref>https://www.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/house-bill/3541/text</ref> The Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007 revised some of the Registry’s rules to remove the 5-year limit on registered numbers. Any phone numbers on the Registry now remain there permanently unless the owner of the number requests removal or the number is invalid.<ref>https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/do-not-call-improvement-act-2007-report-congress-regarding-accuracy-do-not-call-registry/p034305dncreport.pdf</ref>
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TRACED Act
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In 2019, Congress passed the Pallone-Thune Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act which gave the FCC new ways to combat robocalls.<ref>https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/151</ref> The FCC implemented the STIR/SHAKEN framework, which allows caller IDs to be verified for calls carried over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The Secure Telephone Identity Governance Authority (STI-GA) issues private keys on digital certificates to carriers. These keys can be used to digitally sign off on calls made over the Internet.<ref>https://www.plivo.com/blog/voice-calls-stir-shaken/?kw=&cpn=17867267906&utm_campaign_type=search&utm_term=&utm_campaign=CY22-Q3-GoogleSearch-Americas-US/Canada-SEM-WebsiteTraffic-DSA-HypeBlog&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&hsa_acc=2092392810&hsa_cam=17867267906&hsa_grp=138933387549&hsa_ad=612851501458&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=dsa-1699600679256&hsa_kw=&hsa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gclid=Cj0KCQiAlKmeBhCkARIsAHy7WVvWdHI-zHAJyYMq3bqU-nGQZYkN7ErKkS17dRz_hgogbxpkF9-r-uoaAhI2EALw_wcB</ref>
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An overview of the STIR/SHAKEN protocol includes:
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“ 1. When a call is initiated, a SIP INVITE is received by the originating service provider.
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2. The originating service provider verifies the call source and number to determine how to confirm validity.
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Full Attestation (A) — The service provider authenticates the calling party AND confirms they are authorized to use this number. An example would be a registered subscriber.
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Partial Attestation (B) — The service provider verifies the call origination but cannot confirm that the call source is authorized to use the calling number. An example would be a calling number from behind an enterprise PBX.
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Gateway Attestation (C) — The service provider authenticates the call’s origin but cannot verify the source. An example would be a call received from an international gateway.
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3. The originating service provider will now create a SIP Identity header that contains information on the calling number, called number, attestation level, and call origination, along with the certificate.
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4. The SIP INVITE with the SIP Identity header with the certificate is sent to the destination service provider.
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5. The destination service provider verifies the identity of the header and certificate.”<ref>https://www.redcom.com/stir-shaken-overview/</ref>
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If a call cannot be verified, the provider may block it or the recipient may be warned with a ‘Scam Likely’ on the caller ID screen.<ref>https://www.plivo.com/blog/voice-calls-stir-shaken/?kw=&cpn=17867267906&utm_campaign_type=search&utm_term=&utm_campaign=CY22-Q3-GoogleSearch-Americas-US/Canada-SEM-WebsiteTraffic-DSA-HypeBlog&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&hsa_acc=2092392810&hsa_cam=17867267906&hsa_grp=138933387549&hsa_ad=612851501458&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=dsa-1699600679256&hsa_kw=&hsa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gclid=Cj0KCQiAlKmeBhCkARIsAHy7WVvWdHI-zHAJyYMq3bqU-nGQZYkN7ErKkS17dRz_hgogbxpkF9-r-uoaAhI2EALw_wcB</ref>

Revision as of 19:50, 20 January 2023

Robocalls are calls dialed using an automated software that contain a prerecorded message.[1] They can be used to deliver informational messages such as in robocalls that are from health care providers, debt collectors, charities, political campaigns, or otherwise any other purely informational message.[2] Robocalls can also be used for telemarketing purposes, with permission of the recipient.[3]

There are many ethical concerns revolving around robocalls, mainly due to the potential for scammers to impersonate companies, charities, or government entities. Roughly 59.4 million Americans lost money due to scam robocalls in 2021 alone.[4] New legislation and technology has emerged to combat robocalls.

History

Dinner Time Telemarketing

Telemarketing calls during the late 80s and 90s consisted of real people calling to try and sell a product or service.[5] Dialers at this time were manually operated and required a person on the other end to play a prerecorded message.[6] At this time making robocalls was very expensive.[7]

Tony Inocentes

In January 1983, Tony Inocentes used robocall technology he designed to announce his candidacy for the 57th Assembly District in California. In 1989, he created robocall software for debt collecting agencies. In 2001, he also invented political robopolling.[8]

Ethical Implications

Scams

Robocalls are the top consumer complaint reported annually to the FCC.[9] In 2022, 68.4M Americans (26%) reported losing money from phone scams with robocalls scamming 61.1% of those individuals. Many of the individuals harmed by robocall scams are elderly and of hispanic background.[10] The scammers purchase phone numbers from lead brokers and pay small phone service providers to place their calls.[11] Robocall scams often impersonate companies, charities, or government entities in an attempt to receive an individual’s personal information or money.

Spoofing technology has made impersonation easier for scammers by allowing changes to be made to caller IDs. [12] One form of spoofing is called neighbor spoofing in which scammers will mask a caller ID with a local number to impersonate a neighbor or nearby company. Spoofed robocalls will use prerecorded scam scripts to confuse individuals into giving up personal information or money.[13]

Other forms of robocall scams are ‘one-ring’ scams. In these scams, robocalls are used to call several individuals for only ‘one-ring’, with the goal of having a potential victim call the number back and be charged connecting and per-minute fees. The robocalls may be spoofed to impersonate a U.S. based call while actually being made internationally.[14]

Combating Robocalls

Telephone Consumer Protection Act and Telemarketing Sales Rule

Both the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and Telemarketing Sales Rule regulate telemarketing calls, with variations in what entity enforces the rules outlined in these two documents.

In 1991, Congress passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA), which restricted the use of calls with automated dialing systems and prerecorded messages without consent. Calls exempt from the restrictions are those that are not made for commercial purposes, and commercial calls so long as they do not affect the party’s privacy or include unsolicited advertisements. The TCPA entrusted the delegation of rules to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).[15] After being adopted in 1992, one such rule the FCC made was that companies keep their own specific do-not-call registries.

FCC rules regarding the TCPA were revised in 2012 to require telemarketers: “(1) to obtain prior express written consent from consumers before robocalling them, (2) to no longer use an "established business relationship" to avoid getting consent from consumers when their home phones, and (3) to provide an automated, interactive "opt-out" mechanism during each robocall so consumers can immediately tell the telemarketer to stop calling.” (13) The TCPA was further revised on July 2015 when the FCC released the TCPA Declaratory Ruling and Order which allows telephone service providers to offer robocall blocking to customers."[16]

The Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), effective on September 1, 2009, is enforced by the Federal Trades Commission (FTC). The TSR prohibits telemarketing robocalls unless the recipient has given written consent. The TSR also states that any robocall must: “1) allow the telephone to ring for at least 15 seconds or four rings before an unanswered call is disconnected; 2) begin the prerecorded message within two seconds of a completed greeting by the consumer who answers; 3) disclose at the outset of the call that the recipient may ask to be placed on the company's do-not-call list at any time during the message; 4) in cases where the call is answered by a person, make an automated interactive voice and/or keypress-activated opt-out mechanism available during the message that adds the phone number to the company's do-not-call list and then immediately ends the call; and 5) in cases where the call is answered by an answering machine or voicemail, provide a toll-free number that allows the person called to be connected to an automated interactive voice and/or keypress-activated opt-out mechanism anytime after the message is received”.[17][18]

National Do-Not-Call Registry

Growing use of auto dialers for telemarketing purposes after 1992 prompted the Federal Trades Commission to establish a national Do-Not-Call Registry in 2003 to allow for better compliance of TCPA guidelines. The registry consists of a list of phone numbers, maintained by the federal government, whose owners have expressed they do not want to receive telemarketing calls. The list does not cover the exemptions listed in the TCPA.[19] The Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007 revised some of the Registry’s rules to remove the 5-year limit on registered numbers. Any phone numbers on the Registry now remain there permanently unless the owner of the number requests removal or the number is invalid.[20]

TRACED Act

In 2019, Congress passed the Pallone-Thune Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act which gave the FCC new ways to combat robocalls.[21] The FCC implemented the STIR/SHAKEN framework, which allows caller IDs to be verified for calls carried over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The Secure Telephone Identity Governance Authority (STI-GA) issues private keys on digital certificates to carriers. These keys can be used to digitally sign off on calls made over the Internet.[22]

An overview of the STIR/SHAKEN protocol includes: “ 1. When a call is initiated, a SIP INVITE is received by the originating service provider. 2. The originating service provider verifies the call source and number to determine how to confirm validity. Full Attestation (A) — The service provider authenticates the calling party AND confirms they are authorized to use this number. An example would be a registered subscriber. Partial Attestation (B) — The service provider verifies the call origination but cannot confirm that the call source is authorized to use the calling number. An example would be a calling number from behind an enterprise PBX. Gateway Attestation (C) — The service provider authenticates the call’s origin but cannot verify the source. An example would be a call received from an international gateway. 3. The originating service provider will now create a SIP Identity header that contains information on the calling number, called number, attestation level, and call origination, along with the certificate. 4. The SIP INVITE with the SIP Identity header with the certificate is sent to the destination service provider. 5. The destination service provider verifies the identity of the header and certificate.”[23]

If a call cannot be verified, the provider may block it or the recipient may be warned with a ‘Scam Likely’ on the caller ID screen.[24]
  1. ↑ https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/what-are-robocalls
  2. ↑ https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/robocalls
  3. ↑ https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/what-is-a-robocall/
  4. ↑ https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/29/americans-lost-billions-of-dollars-to-phone-scams-over-the-past-year.html
  5. ↑ https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/podcast/robocalls
  6. ↑ "Phone does its own dialing when lever pushed" Popular Mechanics, February 1942, p. 70.
  7. ↑ https://www.tryfirewall.com/blog/robocalls
  8. ↑ https://gtb.net/why-gtb/blog/robocalls-%E2%80%93-everything-you-need-know#:~:text=The%20man%20behind%20robocalls%20is,by%20debt%20collectors%20at%20large.
  9. ↑ https://www.fcc.gov/TRACEDAct
  10. ↑ https://www.truecaller.com/blog/insights/truecaller-insights-2022-us-spam-scam-report
  11. ↑ https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2020/how-do-robocalls-work.html
  12. ↑ https://us.norton.com/blog/online-scams/what-is-a-robocall#
  13. ↑ https://www.fcc.gov/spoofing
  14. ↑ https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/one-ring-phone-scam
  15. ↑ https://www.fcc.gov/general/telemarketing-and-robocalls#:~:text=In%20an%20effort%20to%20address,artificial%20or%20prerecorded%20voice%20messages
  16. ↑ https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2008/08/ftc-issues-final-telemarketing-sales-rule-amendments-regarding-prerecorded-calls
  17. ↑ https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/do-not-call-registry/robocalls
  18. ↑ file:///Users/vanessaruiz/Downloads/FCC-03-153A1%20(1).pdf
  19. ↑ https://www.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/house-bill/3541/text
  20. ↑ https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/do-not-call-improvement-act-2007-report-congress-regarding-accuracy-do-not-call-registry/p034305dncreport.pdf
  21. ↑ https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/151
  22. ↑ https://www.plivo.com/blog/voice-calls-stir-shaken/?kw=&cpn=17867267906&utm_campaign_type=search&utm_term=&utm_campaign=CY22-Q3-GoogleSearch-Americas-US/Canada-SEM-WebsiteTraffic-DSA-HypeBlog&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&hsa_acc=2092392810&hsa_cam=17867267906&hsa_grp=138933387549&hsa_ad=612851501458&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=dsa-1699600679256&hsa_kw=&hsa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gclid=Cj0KCQiAlKmeBhCkARIsAHy7WVvWdHI-zHAJyYMq3bqU-nGQZYkN7ErKkS17dRz_hgogbxpkF9-r-uoaAhI2EALw_wcB
  23. ↑ https://www.redcom.com/stir-shaken-overview/
  24. ↑ https://www.plivo.com/blog/voice-calls-stir-shaken/?kw=&cpn=17867267906&utm_campaign_type=search&utm_term=&utm_campaign=CY22-Q3-GoogleSearch-Americas-US/Canada-SEM-WebsiteTraffic-DSA-HypeBlog&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&hsa_acc=2092392810&hsa_cam=17867267906&hsa_grp=138933387549&hsa_ad=612851501458&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=dsa-1699600679256&hsa_kw=&hsa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gclid=Cj0KCQiAlKmeBhCkARIsAHy7WVvWdHI-zHAJyYMq3bqU-nGQZYkN7ErKkS17dRz_hgogbxpkF9-r-uoaAhI2EALw_wcB
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