In 2021, Americans received 50.5 billion robocalls and 60 million people fell victim to a phone scam

Washington (February 3, 2022) – Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and John Thune (R-S.D.), authors of the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act and members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, sent a letter today to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), expressing support for the agency’s ongoing efforts to address the threat of illegal robocalls, and encouraging the agency to use its authority under the TRACED Act to increase transparency around ongoing efforts to trace harmful calls. The TRACED Act, enacted in December 2019, created a private consortium -- the Industry Traceback Ground (ITG) -- to trace the origins of illegal robocalls and identify who initiates them. The ITG uses information from voice service providers to trace and identify the source of illegal robocalls, and works in collaboration with government enforcement to stop the perpetrators. In their letter, the Senators encouraged the FCC to seek information about the number of independent calling campaigns the ITG has identified and the number of carriers involved in multiple tracebacks.

“The TRACED Act empowers the FCC, with the assistance of the ITG, to take badly needed steps to protect the public from robocalls,” the Senators wrote in their letter to the FCC. “We call on you to continue to use this authority and to work in collaboration with the ITG to help eliminate the threat of fraudulent robocalls and increase transparency into systems that contribute to this problem.”

A copy of the letter can be found HERE.

On January 17, 2019, Senators Markey and Thune introduced the TRACED Act, legislation to combat the rise of illegal robocalls. Enacted in December 2019, the law required the FCC to designate an entity to conduct privately led efforts to trace back the origin of suspected illegal robocalls, which it did in July 2020 by selecting USTelecom-The Broadband Association’s Industry Traceback Group (ITG) as the official consortium. In August 2021, the FCC re-designated the ITG as the official consortium. In December 2021, the Senators introduced the Robocall Trace Back Enhancement Act, new legislation to help bolster privately led efforts to trace back the origins of these illegal robocalls.

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