Ajit Pai has a new proposal to take on international robocallers

On Monday, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, proposed a new rule that would make illegal theft of malicious text messages and automated calls abroad illegal, which the agency does not have. has not yet fully addressed his attempts to combat automated calls.

The measure officially implements the rules approved by Congress last year authorizing the FCC to prosecute SMS fraudsters and international callers. If they are approved, calls and texts that use spoofing to mimic a different phone number would be illegal and would allow the FCC to take legal action against bad actors at the same time. Foreigners who seek to defraud or defraud people in the United States.

"Fraudsters often phone us from abroad and when they do, they usually use their number to mislead consumers," Pai said in a statement. "Call center fraudsters often claim to call trusted organizations and use leverage to steal Americans. We must tackle this problem with every tool we have. "

As illegal and boring automated attacks increased over the past year, the FCC of Pai has taken some steps to give carriers the means to further address the threat. In May, the FCC approved a measure to allow operators to block automated calls by default.

"By stating that this blocking of calls is allowed," Pai said, "the FCC will give voice service providers the legal security they need to block unwanted calls from the outset, so consumers never have to to get them ".

Pai has also lobbied operators such as AT & T, Verizon and T-Mobile to quickly deploy two new infrastructure protocols called SHAKEN / STIR in their networks. Typically, protocols trigger a caller ID message from a phone that only appears when the call is made from an authentic source. Once these protocols have been widely adopted, consumers will be able to easily determine if a call comes from a fraudster.

"With these new rules, we will eliminate loopholes that hinder law enforcement by law enforcement when they try to prosecute international fraudsters with the help of messaging." textual, "Pai said today.

The committee will vote on the new proposal at its meeting on 1 August.