Michigan A.G. Calls for Robocall Control

Michigan’s Attorney General has called on the Federal Communications Commission to encourage telecom companies to do more to block illegal and unwanted robocalls.

Dana Nessel joined the Attorneys General of the other 49 states urging that phone providers increase consumers’ abilities to block calls, and implement measures to prevent caller-ID spoofing. Spoofing is when a call appears to originate from a number in your area, even though it does not. The basic principles were agreed to last week by the Attorneys General and a dozen major wireless providers. 

In their letter, the Attorneys General state that telecom providers should: 

 – Offer free, default call-blocking services to all customers based on reasonable analytics that do not block important calls such as emergency alerts or automated calls requested by customers;

 – Implement the caller-ID authentication technology – known as STIR/SHAKEN – which will help ensure telephone calls are originating from secure, verified numbers as quickly as possible;

 – Develop separate landline caller-ID authentication to prevent illegal and unwanted robocalls to seniors or those that live in rural areas; and,

 – Ensure that call blocking and call authentication efforts protect consumer data.

Many of these actions reflect the Anti-Robocall Principles established and released late last week by the Attorneys General along with AT&T, Bandwidth, CenturyLink, Charter, Comcast, Consolidated, Frontier, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon, and Windstream. These principles address illegal and unwanted robocalls through prevention and enforcement.