Robocalls Safe Harbor Nexus of Disagreements
Size matters when considering safe harbor protections for voice service providers' blocking of robocalls. Parties squared off before the FCC about how broad or narrow such protections should be in docket 17-59 replies posted through Friday. There's disagreement on creation of a critical calls list. Some questioned the need for a secure handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) and secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) mandate since industry is implementing it fine.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Some were critical of relying on Shaken/Stir. ITTA said it's "not yet ready for prime time," so requiring voice service providers to implement it is premature, especially given potential for overblocking. It argued for a broad safe harbor that immunizes call blocking based on reasonable analytics that don't rely on just Shaken/Stir implementation. Rather than "knee-jerk imposition" of a 2019 requirement, wait until Congress passes something, which seems likely, and focus on implementation, it recommended. Echoed Incompas, Shaken/Stir "is still very much a work in progress," and safe harbor is premature until widespread adoption and assurances all interconnected communications platforms can achieve full attestation. It said a safe harbor raises anti-competitive risks for small and competitive providers, and a broad one would deter providers from trying to improve call blocking and authentication. If there's such exemption, include a requirement carriers have a readily discoverable challenge mechanism that lets consumers or providers quickly resolve erroneous call blocking, Incompas said.
USTelecom argued there's wide support for broad safe harbor based on analytics that include Shaken/Stir but aren't limited to it. It said any such mandate needs to acknowledge limits of legacy networks. The association said a critical calls list might be premature. CTIA backed a broad provision that includes analytics-based call blocking.
NCTA pushed for a wide safe harbor along with "a reasonable analytics program," saying a narrow safe harbor won't reduce numbers of calls. It said a critical calls list is necessary given the risk of unintended blocking mistakes. It said small rural telcos need to be encouraged to participate in Shaken/Stir without penalizing other companies such as through different rules for different provider types.
Any critical calls list needs to be centralized, limited to government calls, and have a limited number of exceptions for genuine emergency numbers, said Consumer Reports, the National Consumer Law Center, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, National Association of Consumer Advocates and Public Knowledge. They also said the FCC should establish a centralized system for managing unblocking emergency numbers and other unblocking requests.
Verizon said it and other blocking service providers want to minimize incorrect blocks, so the FCC doesn't need to adopt rules limiting blocking flexibility. The telco said Shaken/Stir requirements on just large providers won't solve the robocall problem, and there needs to be implementation requirements for the entire voice communications industry, including foreign VoIP providers. T-Mobile urged a broader iteration that includes tools beyond Shaken/Stir authentication and allows blocking of calls based on analytics.
With Shaken/Stir being implemented "at an aggressive pace," an implementation mandate isn't needed and could be "unduly burdensome" for smaller operators and legacy networks, America's Communications Association said. ACA said any safe harbor should include reasonable analytics.
The FCC probably can't create a safe harbor that allows voice providers to block calls that fail Caller ID authentication under Shaken/Stir since numerous legal calls also would be blocked, TelTech Systems said. That would violate the Communications Act mandate the agency ensure completion of legal calls, it said: Instead, focus on analytics-based frameworks for all blocking. It, too, backed creation of a critical calls list.
Without full Shaken/Stir implementation, the danger of overblocking is too big to allow a broad safe harbor that encourages aggressive blocking, AARP said, urging a narrower version that includes deployment of a call authentication standard. Attorneys general for all 50 states and Washington, D.C., want "an appropriate safe harbor" and proper regulatory action if major voice service providers don't voluntarily implement Shaken/Stir by year's end.
Backing a critical call list, the Alarm Industry Communications Committee said consumers need to be able to easily remove themselves from call blocking programs before implementation, and alarm companies need to be easily able to correct voice service provider errors. It argued against broad protection for voice providers blocking calls without customer consent. Inmate Calling Solutions requested a reasonable time period for developing processes and tech to discern between illegal robocalls and legal automated voice calls.