House Passes Bill Against Robocalls

The House of Representatives has now put more pressure on robocalls by approving a new bill against them called the Stopping Bad Robocalls Act.

This bill, if it becomes law, will allow the government to pass tougher sanctions on both illegal robocallers as well as the fraudsters that come along with them. The bill was shown an overwhelming support and passed with a 429-3 vote. 

The bill demands the carriers to authenticate calls and offer their customers opt-out blocking free of charge. The FCC will also be asked to put in place consumer protections and to report all of its efforts to the Congress.

In addition to that, the bill will also see the creation of a Hospital Robocall Protection group that will be in charge of protecting the healthcare system. This might sound a little strange at first but hospitals have found themselves flooded with robocalls time and time again in attempts that have all but blocked out their phone lines. 

Robocalls are Consistently Spamming Hospital Lines

“The rising tide of unlawful, unwanted robocalls started as a nuisance but now threatens the way consumers view and use their telephones,” Rep. Frank Pallone has said of the bill. “These calls are undermining our entire phone system, and that’s something we all need to take very, very seriously.”

The Senate and the House will have to get together and fine-tune the bill so it might end up looking a bit different than its current form. However, the fact that a bill has been passed against robocalls, is still a big step forward. 

“Today, the House of Representatives voted to restore Americans’ confidence in the telephone system and put consumers back in charge of their phones.” The leaders of the bill said in a statement. “We’re proud of the strong support our bipartisan Stopping Bad Robocalls Act received this afternoon and look forward to working with our colleagues in the Senate to produce a bill that the President can sign into law. The American people are counting on us to help end the robocall epidemic, and we will deliver for them.“

This is not all: back in May, the Senate passed another bill which was dubbed TRACED. That bill requires phone companies to use a technology protocol called SHAKEN/STIR which will make sure that the calls coming in are authentic. The technology will also trace the illegal calls faster than ever before, in order to allow the agencies that are in charge of policing the robocalls to find out who is responsible for them. 

According to an FCC report that was released back in February, Americans have had to deal with 47.8 billion robocalls just lat year alone. Half of those were made by scammers. Since 2015, complaints about robocalls have increased from 172,000 to 232,000 in 2018.