00:03:45:20 - 00:04:12:05
Unknown
I want to thank everyone for being here for a hearing on protecting Americans from robocalls. And first of all, I want to thank Ranking Member Thune for working with me and my staff. I want to thank his team. And I especially want to thank Senator Fisher for being here with us, as she always is, but especially to serve in an important role today as well.
00:04:12:07 - 00:04:43:13
Unknown
So I want to thank you, Senator Fisher, for joining us to preside today. Thank you so very much. And today, we will hear from expert witnesses on protecting our constituents from the growing number of fraudulent and illegal robocalls and robo texts. Every month, Americans receive roughly 1.5 billion to 3 billion scam calls and likely illegal telemarketing calls. This is an issue that I'm confident everyone in the room has dealt with.
00:04:44:04 - 00:05:08:09
Unknown
For those of you that have your phones on, I'm sure you're going to receive robo calls and robo texts that are predatory even during this hearing. And I would not be surprised if we did as well. Robocalls to interrupt sleep. If you're not putting your phones in some privacy mode or sleep mode or turning them off themselves the entire time with friends and family.
00:05:08:09 - 00:05:30:27
Unknown
And as I said, even during hearings, I won't be surprised if they come up. So if they do, feel free to hold your phone up and share with the rest of America what's happening. What we're in this room. Robocalls have eroded trust in our nation's communications networks. I know many in my family, including myself, that you'll look at the phone now and you're not sure where it's coming from.
00:05:30:27 - 00:06:04:13
Unknown
And some of the phone providers are putting scam alerts or maybe it's some other call and folks will look at their device and they'll drop it down as well. Many have become subject to those phishing attacks from those robo texts as well, which are costing the American people billions of dollars. In 1991, Congress passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the TPA, and more recently, the telephone robocall abuse, criminal enforcement and deterrence Act, which acronym acronym is traced.
00:06:05:13 - 00:06:31:21
Unknown
That was back in 2019. These two lawsuits protect Americans from predatory and unsolicited robocalls and robo attacks, giving federal agencies the tools to fight back. And in some ways, the TPA and traced as they were implemented. The number of unsolicited and illegal telemarketing calls has decreased. Do not call. Complaints at the FCC have reduced as well, not entirely, but by some numbers.
00:06:31:29 - 00:06:59:29
Unknown
And the Federal Communications Commission has issued 500 million enforcement actions against illegal robocalls over the last 12 months. The FCC has empowered the industry traceback group and phone companies to block, by default, illegal or unwanted calls based on reasonable evidence. And the Federal Communications Commission provided a statement for today's hearing. And without objection, I would like to enter it into the record will enter that.
00:07:00:12 - 00:07:31:14
Unknown
However, it is important that we recognize that robocalls and robotics are not just a nuisance. Scammers use our telecom networks to defraud Americans out of an estimated $39 billion. Now, that was just in 2022 alone. That's roughly enough money to provide affordable broadband to the current 21 million households enrolled in the Affordable Connectivity Program for eight years. I hope we understand the magnitude of what that $39 billion year to year means.
00:07:32:02 - 00:07:57:12
Unknown
Scammers and fly by night companies are stealing American families hard earned dollars, using our telecom networks to do so, and they don't face any consequences. The FCC levies fines, but fines go uncollected and the company dissolves and moves assets elsewhere. Congress must empower our regulators and enforcement agencies to ensure that when an individual or company breaks the law, they are held to account.
00:07:57:28 - 00:08:24:00
Unknown
Part of the reason these scammers are so effective at tricking consumers and evading enforcement is that the technology is constantly evolving. We will hear testimony that suggests consumer consent for telemarketing is increasingly falsified. Automated bots and other artificial intelligence systems are using public data to consent on behalf of a consumer for calls they never asked for and do not want.
00:08:24:14 - 00:09:03:08
Unknown
Automated robo calls and robotics are using chat bots and generative artificial intelligence to impersonate a real life person, lulling the recipient into a false sense of security by mimicking voices and mannerisms. In the most frightening examples. Bad actors are playing on our emotions and impersonating loved ones in distress. Earlier this year in the Senate Human Rights Subcommittee, Senator Ossoff and Ranking Member Blackburn, her testimony from Jennifer DeStefano of Arizona, who was a victim of a scam call impersonating her daughter.
00:09:03:18 - 00:09:29:13
Unknown
And without objection, I would like to enter her testimony into the record for today's hearing. Hearing None. It's entered now. She testified, quote, A.I. is revolutionizing and unraveling the very foundation of our social fabric by creating doubt and fear in what was once never questioned. The sound of a loved one's voice. This hearing will examine how robo callers are evading enforcement.
00:09:29:24 - 00:10:00:08
Unknown
Consider public private efforts to combat illegal robocalls, unravel how new and evolving technologies are changing the landscape, and investigate what next steps are needed to protect Americans from fraudulent and illegal text messages and calls. I'm very excited that we have the panel that we have with us today. I'll introduce each of you momentarily. But first, I want to recognize a friend and a leader that is with us today.
00:10:00:16 - 00:10:30:00
Unknown
And I want to turn this over to Ranking Member Fisher for her opening comments. Good morning and thank you, Chairman Lujan, for holding this hearing. The persistent issue of illegal robocalls has been a long standing concern of mine nationwide. Illegal and spoofed robocalls continue to be the number one consumer complaint. I want to ensure that we have the right tools in place to protect consumers from these calls that prey on them.
00:10:30:13 - 00:10:55:25
Unknown
As we all know, our phones give us connection to the world around us, whether it's calling family, friends or colleagues, scheduling appointments or someone summoning emergency services. They are integrated into our daily lives. Our phone numbers are very personal, part part of our identities as well. We use them to verify who we are and we hold on to them for decades, sometimes for a lifetime.
00:10:56:20 - 00:11:29:09
Unknown
But as we know too well, this allows scammers to reach directly into our homes and into our pockets. Bad actors are increasingly savvy in the technologies they use to defraud consumers. This can result in devastating financial losses. Criminals are engaging in more targeted calls and impersonating businesses like banks to steal personal data or commit financial fraud. Phone scams are still yielding the highest reported fraud losses per person.
00:11:29:18 - 00:12:06:21
Unknown
Despite the rapid growth of scammers on social media platforms. In fact, fraud losses due to phone scams are higher than ever. According to a recent report, over 68 million Americans lost approximately $40 billion to phone scams in 2021 alone. In many ways, it feels like we have had this conversation so many times over so many years. But crucially, in 2019, Congress passed the traced act to put wide ranging solutions in motion that would reduce illegal robocalls.
00:12:07:09 - 00:12:41:13
Unknown
I commend my colleague, Senator Thune, for leading this legislation, and I was glad to be a co-sponsor of it. Previously, I also led the Spoofing Spoofing Prevention Act with Senator Bill Nelson, which passed into law in 2018. This law was a foundational effort to increase penalties and boost enforcement tools that fight illegal spoofing. Deterrence through fines for illegal robocall activities is a key part of cracking down on nuisance calls that endanger consumers.
00:12:41:27 - 00:13:15:27
Unknown
On this front, federal agencies, particularly the Justice Department, must improve how they work together to ensure that unpaid fines are collected. There are no silver bullets to eradicate the scourge of illegal scam calls and texts. Lawmakers have to remain village and and monitor how illegal robocalls schemes are evolving. We must be able to empower consumers with the knowledge of who is actually calling them and the ability to block illegal callers.
00:13:16:18 - 00:13:43:05
Unknown
We all share the goal of being able to pick up our phone safely, trusting that we know who's going to be on the other end of the line. But we are not there just yet. The industry has made commendable efforts to reduce the prevalence of these illegal calls, including through advancements in call author authoring to authorize them and trace back technology.
00:13:43:10 - 00:14:21:01
Unknown
New statistics from the federally designated Traceback consortium ITC indicate that certain common robocall scams have started to decline over the last couple of years. Continuing this trend will take the united cooperation of all voice service providers. As lawmakers, we need to maintain this momentum and ensure that traceback efforts are fully supported. I urge the FCC to spend its time and resources to prevent genuine criminal activity and create meaningful, safe harbors for businesses acting in good faith compliance with the law.
00:14:21:17 - 00:14:51:01
Unknown
I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses about where we are in this effort and where additional assistance may be needed. Thank you for being here and thank you, Chairman Lujan. Thank you, Senator Fisher. And I want to thank you again for being with us today. But I want to commend you for your leadership in so many ways, but especially in this case, when it comes to robocalls and robotics and what you've been doing to work to bring support to the American people.
00:14:51:02 - 00:15:15:17
Unknown
So thank you so very much for that. As I introduce the panel, will, after the introduction, will then hear from Ms.. Sanders. But Ms.. Sanders, who is the senior attorney from the National Consumer Law Center. Thank you so much for being with us today. Ms.. Megan Brown, a member of the United States Chamber of Commerce's cybersecurity leadership. Counsel and partner Willie Ryan, I believe, is with us as well.
00:15:15:17 - 00:15:48:27
Unknown
Wiley Ms.. Mr. Josh Bierko. Burkey Like the city. I appreciate that. Josh. Mr.. Josh Berkey Executive Director, Industry Traceback Group and Vice President of Policy and Advocacy for U.S. Telecom. Thank you so much as well. And Mr. Mike Rudolph, the chief technology officer from YOUMAIL. Thank you so much for being with us today. Ms.. SANDERS the floor is yours for your opening statement for 5 minutes.
00:15:51:17 - 00:16:23:09
Unknown
Senator Fisher, I appreciate the opportunity to testify today on what needs to be done to protect Americans from robocalls. I provide my testimony today on behalf of the low income clients of the National Consumer Law Center and the Consumer Federation of America. The current regulatory structure allows criminals access to Americans wallets, as you cited billions of dollars are stolen every year through scams executed over this nation's telephones.
00:16:24:01 - 00:16:58:29
Unknown
At the same time, the combination of scam calls, along with the onslaught of illegal and unwanted telemarketing calls, have damaged our trust in our phones and made it more difficult for legitimate wanted messages to reach us. The FCC has been trying to solve the problem, but today its methods have not succeeded. In my testimony, you can see a graph of the limit of the number of robocalls and telemarketing calls and scam calls over the years.
00:16:59:15 - 00:17:32:17
Unknown
And it looks like that, unfortunately, we are about today where we were in 2019 in terms of the combined number of calls. But either the FCC does not have sufficient legal tools to stop the calls or it has not yet determined how to employ the deploy those tools effectively. The Commission has issued numerous regulations to implement the traced Act, brought multiple enforcement actions against scam callers and their complicit voice service providers.
00:17:32:29 - 00:18:03:10
Unknown
Yet the numbers of calls and the losses to Americans still keep are continuing. The problem is that complicit voice service providers responsible for these calls are making money for transmitting them. And as FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said, quote, Illegal robocalls will continue so long as those initiating and facilitating them can get away with it and profit from it.
00:18:03:18 - 00:18:33:18
Unknown
End quote. To eliminate these calls, there must be incentives for compliance, which there are not currently. We believe that the calls can be dramatically reduced, but the resolution requires a shift in emphasis by the FCC. The primary goal of the FCC's actions should be to protect the nation's telephone subscribers from the scam calls that are stealing billions of dollars.
00:18:34:20 - 00:19:10:24
Unknown
To do that requires a change from ensuring that calls can be completed and protecting voice service providers. Access to the telephone numbers telephone network towards shielding consumers from these illegal calls. If the FCC were to adopt a system under which it quickly suspends the ability of a voice service provider to participate in the network, once that provider is determined to be a repeat offender, we think that would be a magic bullet.
00:19:11:17 - 00:19:50:13
Unknown
This is along the lines of the temporary restraining order procedure established in the federal Rules of Civil Procedure. There are procedures that can be used that we think would change the incentive structure and actually cause a reduction in the calls. Additionally, the FCC current regulations prohibit telemarketers from calling our phones without express written consent. Telemarketers routinely ignore the specific requirements of these regulations and make about a billion illegal telemarketing calls every month.
00:19:51:02 - 00:20:28:09
Unknown
Then they defend themselves from government and private enforcement by relying on specious consent agreements that were either completely fabricated or based on supposed consent agreements sold and resold and sold. Again by lead generators. The acts The FCC could actually eliminate this entire business model by simply reiterating its current regulations. Instead, unfortunately, it has proposed new regulations that are less protective of consumers in a nutshell.
00:20:28:24 - 00:20:56:12
Unknown
We believe that the FCC could eliminate most of these these illegal calls by changing their current emphasis in a civilization in which we can take pictures of Saturn's rings. The failure to solve this problem is not a matter of technology. It's a question of whether the people in power actually want to solve it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ms..
00:20:56:12 - 00:21:24:28
Unknown
Saunders, on the floor is yours for 5 minutes. Thank you very much. Good morning. Chairman Lujan, Ranking Member Fisher, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Megan Brown and I'm a partner in the Telecom, media and technology practice at Wiley Ryan. I'm here on behalf of the U.S. Chambers Institute for Legal Reform. The U.S. Chamber is the world's largest business federation, representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes and sectors, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations.
00:21:25:10 - 00:21:45:07
Unknown
Its Institute for Legal Reform is a division of the chamber that promotes civil justice reform at the global, national, state and local levels. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. The Chamber has been involved in robo calling issues for years and offers the perspective of the American business community which values reliable and trustworthy ways to communicate with customers and the public.
00:21:45:21 - 00:22:07:25
Unknown
This is a highly regulated space with lots of litigation, something the Chamber has been vocal about for years because TPA remains a major source of class action litigation that, in its view, does little to help consumers. So the chamber today would like the committee to leave with four main points. First, American businesses support cracking down on illegal and abusive robocalls.
00:22:08:08 - 00:22:34:22
Unknown
Businesses want consumers to continue to trust the ecosystem and answer their calls and texts. American businesses work hard to comply with these very complex regulations at the federal and state level. They are heard by caller I.D., spoofing and fraud against consumers. And because of those harms, companies are fighting back against robocall scams. For example, Marriott did its own investigation into millions of calls placed illegally using misusing its brand.
00:22:35:01 - 00:23:04:04
Unknown
It worked with the Industry Traceback Group and YOUMAIL, and then it sued the malicious robo callers getting an injunction against the marketing agency that placed all these calls. Bless you. U.S. businesses take the law seriously and work hard to comply with it. Second, Congress has passed major legislation recently on a bipartisan basis to address illegal robocalls. You can ensure that your hard work bears fruit by encouraging the Department of Justice to make robocall scams and illegal spoofing a priority.
00:23:04:17 - 00:23:29:16
Unknown
The Federal Communications Commission has taken major steps to implement all of this new congressional direction. And I know FCC staff have been working really hard on these issues. They've issued enormous forfeiture orders against bad actors that blatantly break the law, and its cease and desist orders have been particularly impactful. Likewise, the Federal Trade Commission has been addressing scams using illegal, illegal robo calls and texts.
00:23:29:26 - 00:23:54:00
Unknown
And state attorneys general have partnered with federal agencies and bring their own cases. DOJ, however, is a vital partner here, and Congress should urge the department to make enforcement a priority by acting aggressively on the referrals it gets from the FCC and by bringing its own cases directly for violations of laws like the Truth in CALLER ID Act, but also mail and wire fraud for some of these really egregious scams.
00:23:55:03 - 00:24:25:06
Unknown
Third, unfortunately, the taxpayer's private rate of action and statutory damages continue to fuel abuse of litigation against American businesses. The Institute for Legal Reform has tracked lawsuit abuse for years, and the operating environment under the TCJA continues to hurt businesses and consumers class actions seeking enormous damages and attorneys fees. Professional TCP plaintiffs and the threat of crushing liability for mistakes creates a challenging environment for American businesses.
00:24:25:20 - 00:24:49:00
Unknown
An important takeaway here is that the TCP class actions and those large settlements do not address the bad actors that are intentionally violating federal law to send millions of illegal calls. Here I have in mind people like Adrian Abramovich, Greg Robbins, John Spillers, or the shell companies that they use to make massive numbers of fraudulent calls, often pretending to be legitimate American businesses.
00:24:49:29 - 00:25:11:03
Unknown
Fourth, the chamber knows that some on this committee are considering additional legislation. Congress has been active on robo calling over the past several years, and the Chamber suggests that if the committee goes forward with legislation, it should also consider modest but important changes that would limit the abuse of our judicial system through TCP a class actions that do not stop bad actors.
00:25:11:22 - 00:25:39:15
Unknown
So in some, the chamber appreciates the committee's attention to these issues, as well as the hard work of the FCC, state AGs and the other panelists here to go after bad actors that abuse our networks, steal corporate goodwill and harm consumers. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. Thank you so very much. Your testimony today. Mr. Burkey, the Florida Department of To thank you, Chairman and Ranking Member Fisher, for the opportunity to join this important conversation.
00:25:39:22 - 00:26:02:14
Unknown
I'm Josh Burke, you executive director of the Industry Traceback Group, or ITG, and I also serve as vice president policy and advocacy advocacy at U.S. Telecom. The Broadband Association. U.S. Telecom established the ITG to address the illegal robocall problem. And today, pursuant to the TRACE Act, the ITG is designated by the FCC as the official consortium to trace back unlawful robocalls.
00:26:02:28 - 00:26:26:27
Unknown
We are proud to support the FCC, FTC, DOJ, state attorneys general and other government efforts to stop illegal robocalls through our traceback data. And I'm pleased to be here today to discuss that collective effort and how Congress can bolster it. As I explained in my written testimony, various technology and economic changes have made it cheap and easy for bad actors to call American consumers from anywhere in the world.
00:26:27:14 - 00:26:52:24
Unknown
All anyone needs to initiate robocalls is a computer, some associated software and a website. In the past, providers had no true, had no way to know the true origin of the calls. Industry traced back sales for that. By piecing together the entire path of any given suspicious call, regardless of the number of providers involved, we obtained within a day or two the same information that would take enforcement agencies multiple months to get via subpoenas.
00:26:53:05 - 00:27:26:00
Unknown
And virtually all of the data we get makes its way to those enforcement agencies. Thanks to TG data, federal and state agencies are bringing more enforcement actions against illegal robocalls than ever before, and these efforts are working. For example, data from my colleagues at Youmail show that scam robocall volumes have dropped over 50% from their peak in October 2019, and after FCC and state enforcement actions based on ITG trace backs the billions of auto warranty robocalls that were plaguing Americans early last year have dropped almost zero.
00:27:26:21 - 00:27:53:24
Unknown
No. Notably, even absent any affirmative enforcement action traced back to disrupt illegal robocalls in real time. Nearly 85% of completed traced backs result in the originating provider warning or firing its offending customer. But as industry and government innovate to fight illegal robocalls, so do their perpetrators. For instance, instead of robo callers robocalls, scammers are now making more targeted live calls, sometimes combined with communications through other channels.
00:27:54:06 - 00:28:26:26
Unknown
The scammers know precisely who they are calling as they convincingly pretend to be your bank. For example, also, the decline in scam robocalls has been supplanted by a substantial rise in unsolicited and unwanted telemarketing robocalls. These are the robocalls your constituents are most likely to receive today. A consumer may sign up on a job listing website, for example, but miss the fine print linking to a second page with hundreds or thousands of marketing partners that each now purportedly have the consumer's consent for robocalls.
00:28:27:06 - 00:28:52:08
Unknown
Even worse, ITG evidence suggests that these already flimsy claims of consent could be entirely falsified by bots concerning on behalf of consumers for calls they never ask for and do not want. While stir shaken calls indication framework makes it harder to send spoofed calls to consumers, prolific robocalls now engage in number rotation where they cycle through a signed not spoofed numbers sometimes for a single call per number.
00:28:53:04 - 00:29:13:15
Unknown
This practice is intended to evade industry safeguards and harms both consumers and legitimate callers because calls from new numbers are far more likely to be treated as spam as a result. In my testimony, I provide several steps that Congress can take to further empower industry and government efforts to stop illegal robocalls. But I want to emphasize a few today.
00:29:13:29 - 00:29:41:26
Unknown
First, Congress should ensure that DOJ prioritizes prosecuting the criminals behind unlawful robocalls. Second, to address problematic number rotation. Congress should formally expand the role of the Traceback consortium to investigate how bad actors get access to scores of numbers. Third, Congress should reintroduce and pass the Robocall Traceback Enhancement Act, which Senators Thune and Markey introduced last Congress to protect the consortium in the work protecting consumers.
00:29:42:14 - 00:30:07:21
Unknown
Thank you again for the opportunity to speak. We look forward. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with the subcommittee and federal and state government partners in solving the illegal robocall problem. Mr. Berkley, thank you very much for your testimony today as well. Mr. Rudolf You're recognized for 5 minutes forgers. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today regarding robocalls, robotics, targeted attacks like Vishing and Smishing.
00:30:07:21 - 00:30:28:16
Unknown
I'm a CTO, so I'm going to introduce a whole bunch of acronyms and new terms. I apologize. And the evolving landscape of threats, tools and enforcement. My name is Mike Rudolph and I'm the CTO at Youmail. Youmail provides a service that protects individuals from harmful calls and texts, and we publish the robocall index, summarizing nationwide and state robocall data.
00:30:29:05 - 00:31:06:07
Unknown
We also provide blocking, analysis, audit and investigative services to communication providers, enterprises, investment firms and government agencies. Prior to YOUMAIL, I worked with many Fortune 500 companies helping mitigate risk through automated controls and policies to comply with things like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and implement processes, performing background checks and pre-employment screening. I see similar patterns and needs emerging and communications now as robocall mitigation controls and know your customer policies, the balance, the levers of risk and revenue communication providers who can control those levers.
00:31:06:29 - 00:31:42:20
Unknown
I'm honored to work with talented the talented YOUMAIL team on the front lines of investigations, disruptions and enforcement. Our team is small given the demands to monitor tens of thousands of monthly and weekly active messaging and voice campaigns targeting consumers. Some of our prioritized, targeted success here in industry is well-chronicled working with states, particularly the attorney general's offices, federal agencies and private industry, such as one of Wylie's clients, resulting in 90 to 100% reduction when we target specific robocall campaigns.
00:31:43:28 - 00:32:05:24
Unknown
I think it commend those partners that made the identification and disruption of those campaigns a top priority for their fraud, cyber or legal teams. Without their collaboration, it's significantly harder to escalate. A robocall campaign from simply being unwanted and deceptive all the way up to unlawful in Eagle. So we can take a lawful and legal so we can take action.
00:32:06:16 - 00:32:31:11
Unknown
When the FCC identified specific robo campaigns as poison pills for industry, I observed many providers that were previously uncertain about how to treat those calls suddenly decide with decisive action how to try to stop them. We can credit 2022 is a year unwanted. Auto warranty calls were stopped. However, now we have home warranty debt reduction, government grant loan and insurance calls taking their place.
00:32:32:23 - 00:32:57:19
Unknown
Robo operators feverishly evolve their tactics in this cat and mouse game and some embrace new techniques and tactics like generative AI, shifting from spoofing of numbers to using real numbers and have adopted strategies to minimize the evidence they leave behind, which is necessary for companies like ours and the ATG and the FCC to ultimately stop these these bad actors.
00:32:58:29 - 00:33:22:19
Unknown
Who is to serve as our TSA screening guardian that stops bad actors from flying the skies of the public telephone network. These accounts providers checked only the first day they want to make a call. Are they checked routinely every time they want to traverse a network like airline travelers? Every time they fly, By our estimates, we have endured over 250 billion.
00:33:22:19 - 00:33:43:02
Unknown
That's a quarter trillion robo calls since 2019, about a thousand per American adult. We've taken a bite out of several of the most prolific robocall operations responsible for these few billion calls. It's not just the sheer volume game as every robocall campaign is different and we are now in an era where there's fewer but more advanced calls causing more harm per call.
00:33:43:27 - 00:34:07:20
Unknown
There is no shortage of work to do if we're to continue to make progress. I look forward to your questions. Mr. Randolph, thank you so very much as well for being with us today. I'm going to recognize myself for 5 minutes for your questions. Now, as you all can see on the image behind me, there are multiple examples of scammers impersonating companies to trick consumers and steal their information now.
00:34:08:00 - 00:34:35:18
Unknown
These are real messages collected by my staff. But the links were changed so that we don't inadvertently encourage people to go to to these links as well and and therefore supporting that fraud. Now, this is a problem for so many industries, from delivery services to streaming platforms to financial institutions to government agencies. And I very much appreciate the groups that are walking in now.
00:34:36:07 - 00:34:55:28
Unknown
I don't want to detract from the questions that I have, but you all know what robo calls are in robo tech, sorry, with your devices. I've seen a lot of heads nodding yes. I'm sure you're tired of them and you want them to end. That's what this hearing is about. And so you all have ideas as well. We'd invite them to be submitted to us.
00:34:55:28 - 00:35:22:18
Unknown
So the closer the trip that you're on, we may be leaning out to be able to solicit that information with what's happening to each and every one of. Now, Miss Brown, yes or no, does the prevalence of texts and calls impersonating U.S. companies negatively affect the ability of your member companies to reach and build relationships with consumers? I don't know.
00:35:22:18 - 00:35:44:11
Unknown
It seems like it's your microphone. Oh, got it. Got it. Sorry. Thank you. Sorry about that. I don't know that it lends itself to a clean yes or no. The chamber is really concerned about business impersonation fraud and the texts that you see. But I think I don't know that we have seen a a noticeable harm to the overall business relationship with our customers.
00:35:44:11 - 00:36:03:04
Unknown
Like it's a part of the package. And I think our our the chamber members do a good job of keeping those relationships. But it is a worry the brand dilution and for instance, the Marriott case that I mentioned earlier, it is a concern that you know, the brands will be diluted by this kind of fraud and I'll share with you my experience this round.
00:36:03:04 - 00:36:23:03
Unknown
There are some companies when they're calling my phone now, I will not answer because I've been hit over and over by robocalls from them. There are some companies where they've been spoofed before, but it's not been time and time again. But I'm less likely to to answer them or I'm very cautious as well now that's that's my behavior.
00:36:23:03 - 00:36:41:04
Unknown
I don't know if that's consistent with others across the room. When I was asking them, I saw a lot of heads nodding yes. And so we want to make sure that there is that trust that can be established with this form of communications. I appreciate that. My follow up is misunderstood. I want to talk about the impact on consumers.
00:36:41:04 - 00:37:09:15
Unknown
Specifically, can you share examples how messages and calls such as these defraud customers and limit access to goods and services was that to me? Yes. Yes. I have an example of an elderly woman in Virginia who answered a prerecorded call purporting to be from the Social Security Administration that it had found drugs in a car associated with her.
00:37:09:15 - 00:37:30:09
Unknown
And then if she didn't pay a certain amount of money to do a certain take, a certain number of steps, she would lose her Social Security. And as a result, she actually ended up losing hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings. I have many more examples. I don't know how much time you want me to take with them, but they are a lot of them are written up in our scam report.
00:37:30:09 - 00:37:54:08
Unknown
That's on our website. And Jeff, what I may do is if we can get that report, we'll ask unanimous consent to submit that into the record as well. And Sanders says so that is part of the record for this particular hearing. So thank you so very much. Mr. Burka, One of the recommendations in your testimony supports the FTC and FCC clarifications of consent for safe calls.
00:37:54:25 - 00:38:30:05
Unknown
Earlier this year, you said Senator Markey had worked on some other issues, but Ed Markey and I had also led a letter to the FCC chairwoman asking the commission to update guidance along the lines of the FTC. FTC reinstating long held requirements for unwanted telemarketing calls. Now, Mr. Berger, you also cited evidence that consumer consent for telemarketing is increasingly falsified in automated bots, and other artificial intelligence systems are using public data to consent on behalf of a consumer for calls they never asked for or do not want.
00:38:30:17 - 00:38:54:19
Unknown
How can industry, FTC and FCC update guidance to develop standards that would limit the use of automated bots to falsify consent for? Thank you, Chairman. I think on this issue, I think the courts and the guidance that's out there are pretty clear already. You need an actual consumer's consent, and if it's falsified, it's not consent. So I think those are clear.
00:38:54:19 - 00:39:21:16
Unknown
And if there's any ambiguity, happy to work with you and your staff on on resolving that ambiguity, because consumers should only be in the calls they actually consented to. I appreciate that very much. Ms.. Fisher, the floor is yours for questions. Thank you, Chairman Lujan. To begin with, I'd like to ask unanimous consent that a statement from Senator Thune and a letter from ACA International and the Credit Union National Association be made part of the hearing record.
00:39:21:26 - 00:39:48:17
Unknown
Without objection. Thank you. And I agree with the chairman that this committee's focus on enforcement today is key. First and foremost, though, I think we need to ensure that our laws and rules that are on the books are being enforced to the fullest extent. Since 2020, the FCC has issued 700 million in forfeiture orders for TSE pay violations.
00:39:49:01 - 00:40:20:13
Unknown
However, hardly any of these have been collected, collected mostly due to the Justice Department's failure to pursue these cases in court in its obligations under the traced Act. The DOJ also seems to have missed the opportunity to submit a report with meaningful recommendations. Miss Brown, do you believe that the Justice Department is doing enough to ensure that bad actors carrying out illegal telemarketing and robocall schemes pay the penalties that the FCC assesses?
00:40:20:22 - 00:40:43:28
Unknown
Thank you for the question. And in my written testimony, we explain. No, I don't believe the Department of Justice is doing enough. And you can sense that frustration from the FCC chairwoman. They certainly at the department have a lot of tools that they can use, both to enforce FCC orders, but on their own to bring righteous mail fraud, wire fraud cases and enforce the laws that you all have passed.
00:40:43:29 - 00:41:00:17
Unknown
So, yes, we believe the United States Department of Justice should do more. And as a former DOJ official, I think it is a missed opportunity for them. So what can we as Congress do to make sure that they do enforce those rules that, as you said, they have the tools? So how do we get them to use them?
00:41:00:24 - 00:41:22:25
Unknown
Well, I think that one challenge is it's hard for Congress to direct the Department of Justice to take specific action due to separation of powers. But you have a lot of power to nudge, cajole and shape expectations. And in my written testimony, we offer a few examples. In the Trade Act. For example, you impose some pretty robust reporting obligations on the Federal Communications Commission.
00:41:23:00 - 00:41:51:06
Unknown
We think similarly you could impose those kinds of updates, mandates on DOJ to let you all know what they're doing. We also suggest that DOJ should prioritize funds for investigations and enforcement, and you all can direct some of that. And then requiring DOJ, for example, to establish a robocall Enforcement and education office right now at the department, I think much of their robocall effort is housed under an elder justice initiative.
00:41:51:13 - 00:42:20:24
Unknown
And I think that that's really important, obviously. But they can do more. And I think Congress can really look into that and impress upon them that this is a priority. You know, to me, the focus on enforcement really is two pronged. We want to make sure that the government's going after the bad actors and we want to avoid opening up legitimate actors to frivolous lawsuits, abusive litigation against businesses acting in good faith does nothing to stop criminals.
00:42:21:22 - 00:42:55:08
Unknown
Mr. Brown, would you provide some examples of TPA filings that you view as litigation abuse? Certainly. Thank you. And unfortunately, there are a lot and I would commend to anyone's attention the work that the chamber's Institute for Legal Reform has done. They've had several reports that give examples. But one example that stuck out to me recently, the city of Albuquerque was sued after sending text messages to local residents during the COVID 19 pandemic to notify them of the opportunity to participate in socially distanced town halls.
00:42:55:15 - 00:43:20:04
Unknown
And ultimately, Senator, I believe the city was able to get out of that lawsuit, but not after burdensome litigation. And that's just one example of many that seems to go after beneficial communications, or at least not the bad actors that I think we're here mostly to talk about. You know, we have many members on this committee who represent very rural states.
00:43:20:05 - 00:44:13:21
Unknown
There's a lot of vastness in in our states. And we want to make sure that rural Americans receive services, governmental services, but also services from private industry. And many of rural America is still connected with copper lines, and they are when we look at these fraudulent schemes that are out there. Mr. Burke, you what are the challenges that remain for these copper based voice service networks in terms of stopping illegal robocalls and their telemarketing schemes and just this lack of fiber that we see in rural areas that have an outsized effort on most of our rural constituents that we have?
00:44:14:11 - 00:44:33:07
Unknown
Thank you. I think there are challenges. I know the industry is very committed to moving to IP and that that work is ongoing. Yes, when stir shaken information can't be passed to the legacy networks. But what I would say is that the protections in place are helping all consumers. When we trace back calls, those calls are hitting people in New York.
00:44:33:07 - 00:44:51:21
Unknown
They're hitting people in rural America as well. And so when we get them off the network, that's helping everyone. Same with Stir Shaken. It's helping infuse accountability that benefits everyone, whether they're getting their calls with stir shaken or not. Yeah, Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Markey, Eric, and answer questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:44:52:06 - 00:45:17:29
Unknown
In 2019, I was proud to partner with Senator Thune to pass the telephone robocall Abuse, Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act Trace Act, which directed the Federal Communications Commission to issue critical new rules to crack down on illegal robocalls. The Traced Act has helped stop some of the worst practices by robo callers, but robo calls remain a plague on our telephone system.
00:45:18:12 - 00:45:53:08
Unknown
My constituents in Massachusetts received over 623 million robocalls last year, nearly 20 robocalls per second. This year, Massachusetts residents are on pace to receive 800 million robocalls across the country. Americans are on pace to receive 54 billion robocalls this year. Some robo calls a waffle. But of course, the numbers of unlawful calls are astonishing to each of the witnesses, starting with Ms..
00:45:53:08 - 00:46:24:00
Unknown
Sanders. Do you agree that robocalls remain a serious problem for consumers? Yes or no? Yes. Is pro unlawful and illegal robocalls? Certainly do. Yes, sir. Yes. Mr. Cook? Yes. Illegal robocalls remain a problem. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. These fraudulent robocalls cost consumers tens of billions of dollars every year and undermine trust in the telephone system. That is a serious problem.
00:46:24:06 - 00:46:56:08
Unknown
Period. And I want to turn to one particular element of the traced act. The law directed the FCC to require the telephone providers adopt a technical standard to verify that caller ID information was accurate. Senator Thune and I drafted this provision to stop bad actors from falsifying caller ID information. A practice known as spoofing Robo callers often spoofed calls to make the caller ID indicate that a call is coming from a local number.
00:46:56:20 - 00:47:23:24
Unknown
I'm pleased that the FCC has worked expeditiously to implement this provision, but I'm also deeply alarmed by the sheer number of fraudulent robocalls and scams. Robocalls seem to be changing their methods faster than we can adjust the Saunders. Do you agree that the Traced Act has has been helpful in reducing the number of spoof calls, but that robo callers have found ways to circumvent that these rules?
00:47:24:07 - 00:47:51:21
Unknown
Yes, sir, I do. And and Mr. Rudolph, do you agree with Ms.. Sanders assessment? Absolutely. I know we see less spoof numbers than ever before. We see that the threat actors, especially those impersonating banks, getting real active phone numbers and also jumping when a bank branch closes down, grabbing that number and then using that number to contact people, it's unbelievable.
00:47:51:24 - 00:48:23:02
Unknown
Targeting robo callers is like an endless game of whack a mole. And so far the moles are winning by an astonishing margin. In this battle, if the robo callers have evaded the caller ID system by exploiting how phone numbers are distributed, then we may need to adapt our regulations as well. And I want to say one final word about the FCC's robo call mitigation database.
00:48:23:16 - 00:49:01:18
Unknown
Every telephone provider must register with that database at the Federal Communications Commission and companies that have not yet implemented the caller ID verification system must submit a plan for addressing illegal robocalls. Last week, the FCC took an important step to begin removing 20 noncompliant companies from the robocall Flood Mitigation Database. Some of the company's filings were laughable. Here's one here's one of the filings right here.
00:49:01:18 - 00:49:42:14
Unknown
Pretty simple to see. It's a blank piece of paper. That is what they have submitted in terms of their compliance with the law. Another filing was a picture of the company's logo. Another provider submitted a document that said nothing in capital letters on the sheet of paper on the website, nothing. I'm glad the FCC has launched enforcement proceedings against these obviously problematic filings, and I appreciate the ideas that Ms..
00:49:42:14 - 00:50:22:08
Unknown
Sanders has suggested to further strengthen the robocall mitigation database. I look forward to continuing to work with the Commission and my colleagues on this issue. It goes right to the heart of the issue that just drives every American crazy every single day, the unwanted robocalls coming into their lives all day long at the most inconvenient times, almost knowing that you're home and you're having dinner with your family to be the perfect time to get the whole family angry at these companies.
00:50:22:15 - 00:50:45:17
Unknown
So we thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this hearing. And we just have to keep our focus on this issue. Thank you all so much for everything they do. Senator Markey, thank you very much. And especially bringing attention to the filings at the end of your testimony today, I am reminded that some of those also include menus from restaurants as being submitted as official documents as well.
00:50:45:18 - 00:51:05:05
Unknown
So thank you very much. I'm bringing more and more attention to the enforcement of this. Thank you very much, Senator, and your work on this. Senator Buddy recognized for 5 minutes. Thank you, Chairman. And I thank you for the witnesses for being here today. You know, when I talk to folks from North Carolina, they ask me about this topic a lot.
00:51:05:06 - 00:51:25:23
Unknown
They talk about robocalls and they express their frustrations. Some of them, they don't want to download the app that helps screen these things or pay a few extra dollars for that. So they're frustrated. They want some solutions. When I was in the U.S. House a year ago, I was proud to be an original co-sponsor of the Trust Act, which I think it's making a difference.
00:51:26:13 - 00:51:49:27
Unknown
According to Youmail scam robo call volumes have declined about 55% since their peak in October of 2019. Tools like Industry, the Industry Traceback Group and deployed authentication technologies like Stir Shaken. Great name by the way. They better detect spoofing. They seem to be working. So I think we all still agree, however, that there's still a lot of work to do.
00:51:50:26 - 00:52:18:06
Unknown
Mr. Baer, to your written testimony, noted that, quote, government and brand imposter calls predominantly abroad. These are scams where someone claims to be calling from the IRS regarding back taxes or from the local power company on an overdue. These scams are particularly dangerous because they pretend to be communication from important institutions like government agencies, utilities, or from banks.
00:52:18:09 - 00:52:42:12
Unknown
And you're working with the Industry Traceback Group. Have you identified any gaps in federal efforts to prevent illegal scam robocalls that make going after those foreign callers difficult? Thank you. Yes, it is difficult because they feel they're not going to face justice because they're not based here. They use shell companies. They get kicked off a network and find a new one.
00:52:42:13 - 00:53:08:24
Unknown
So, absolutely, we've been very effective in disrupting them. We've seen some of the the impact, especially on the robocall side, that the scam volume is way down. But, you know, it's one of the reasons know I agree with my colleague here, Megan that criminal enforcement against these individuals, these groups that's organized crime abroad doing this is absolutely critical because that the only way they're going to stop trying to defraud Americans if is they're taken off the board.
00:53:08:25 - 00:53:38:06
Unknown
So we think that's very important. Thank you. So you mentioned for you mentioned the enforcement agencies. What could some of them do to improve the success rate of stopping these foreign placed robocalls? So, again, I think criminal enforcement is key. When the few years ago, when the Department of Justice, FBI worked with the Central Bureau of Intelligence in India to raid some of these call centers, government imposter impersonation scams went down almost overnight.
00:53:38:07 - 00:54:06:22
Unknown
So that is key. It's really working with those partners abroad and bringing people to justice, I think is the key. Thank you. Miss Brown, in your testimony, you discussed how the Department of Justice does not sufficiently prioritize prosecuting bad actors who break robocall laws and they attempt to defraud Americans. How does a lack of enforcement action influence efforts to shut down scams and make the cost of illegally robo calling significant enough to dissuade criminals?
00:54:07:22 - 00:54:31:16
Unknown
Thank you for the question, Senator. I think the lack of DOJ enforcement kind of shows that the FCC's efforts really run out of steam if the department's not there to sort of get them across the finish line to actually collect on some of those forfeitures. Similarly, there are open and notorious scammers that seem to me very clearly violating the wire fraud in the mail fraud statutes.
00:54:31:27 - 00:54:52:15
Unknown
And I think sending a message, as Josh was just saying, to whether it's to overseas scammers or domestic scammers. I mean, some of the folks the FCC has brought enforcement actions are right here in the United States and the department has taken a few actions to bring some cases. But I think they could do far more to send that message that we're not going to tolerate these scams.
00:54:52:15 - 00:55:29:12
Unknown
And the fraud that Margo discussed. Thank you. So how would small businesses who themselves can be victims of these robocalls and illegal scam calls? How would these small businesses benefit from increased DOJ enforcement of the existing laws? That to me, Senator, you're right. I think they would benefit in the same ways that consumers would if if they are being victimized and they don't have the resources to deploy sophisticated anti fraud than sending that message to take, As Josh said, some of these bad actors off the board, I think would be really, really helpful to them in much the same way that consumers are being defrauded.
00:55:30:07 - 00:55:54:24
Unknown
Anyone else? On helping small businesses. First, I'd like to commend your attorney general. North Carolina is one of the top leaders in robocall enforcement at the state level. I would say that small businesses we've we have data that shows some of the threat. Actors understand that they've got deeper pockets, I suppose, as a targeted victim. So we are seeing a rise in specifically the robocall and robo texts.
00:55:55:05 - 00:56:13:17
Unknown
They're trying to hit small business owners and convince them, you know, to engage in their their campaigns. Thank you. My time's expired. Thanks, Senator. But, Senator Tester, you're recognized for questions. I want to thank you for holding this hearing, you and the ranking member. I appreciate it very much. I want to thank the folks who are testifying today.
00:56:15:22 - 00:56:38:09
Unknown
We got murderers. We got child molesters, we got rapists, we got drug peddlers. We got people who commit armed robbery and then we got robo callers. Okay. And it distresses me a lot when I hear that there's $700 million of fines that have been levied and no collections. Ms.. Brown, you were were you were with your attorney's office at one point in time in your career.
00:56:38:09 - 00:56:59:03
Unknown
Is that what I gathered? I was at Main Justice at the Department of Justice. Well, that's good enough. So, look, they got all this stuff. I know the U.S. attorney in Montana, for example, was very, very busy running down people who are doing horrific crimes. By the way, I could make a claim that this is nearly as horrific as any of those ones I mentioned before.
00:56:59:03 - 00:57:19:25
Unknown
Why? Because I've got a business. I was on top of a combine this year. The phone's ringing. I'm expecting a call from my wife. I bust off the combine damn near break my leg. I get to the call and the guy is asking me if I paid my loan for when I was in school. I haven't been in college in 45 years and I didn't have a loan when I went then because it was a different time.
00:57:20:21 - 00:57:41:08
Unknown
So these guys are bad, bad people. The question I have is the DOJ has levied these fines and none of it's been collected. There is an effort here in this body to defund the Department of Justice. Do they have enough people for you, Mr. Brown? Well, having been at Main Justice, I know they have a lot of priorities.
00:57:41:08 - 00:58:04:13
Unknown
They have a lot of people. I do think the department can probably walk and chew gum at the same time and prioritize a few more of these cases. I would love it because we can pass all the laws we want here and we can take credit for pass these laws. But unless somebody drops the hammer on these clowns and makes them pay a price, puts them out of jail, or better yet, even puts them in jail, and I'd pay more taxes to put these people in jail.
00:58:04:22 - 00:58:28:14
Unknown
I think it's going to continue to happen and it's going to happen. When I was in the state legislature 20 years ago, we passed the do not call list. I've signed up for multiple do not call list, and I get more robocalls today than I did back in 2003, for example, 20 years ago. So the question is, is does Congress need to do any more or is this all about enforcement?
00:58:30:19 - 00:59:02:16
Unknown
Ms.. Ms.. Saunders I'll let you go. Ms.. Brown got the last one, so we spread it around your turn. Our main point in our tests in the testimony that I've submitted is that the incentives need to be changed. Whatever way it's done. Well, I understand if you hit somebody in their wallet, that kind of hurts, right? Right. And and what we've proposed the is that the FCC adopt a methodology such as is permitted under the federal rules of civil procedure to get a temporary version.
00:59:02:16 - 00:59:32:02
Unknown
And they have not done that yet. No. So that once a particular voice service provider is found to be a repeat offender, continue to process calls after it's been notified previously. Yep. The FCC should be should suspend immediately. It's ability to do. The rest of the people on the panel agree with that perspective. Ms.. Brown. I haven't reviewed closely Ms..
00:59:32:02 - 00:59:53:15
Unknown
Saunders proposal, but I'm not sold that we need new authorities over at the FCC to to do the kind of suspensions that she's talking about. I think they've got that. But do you think those suspensions would be okay if they did? On the voice service side? I'm not sure exactly whether there'd be some unintended consequences there of what she's proposing, but they certainly can do more with their cease and desist orders and notices.
00:59:54:18 - 01:00:11:22
Unknown
So I think when we're talking about fraud, one of the themes is that the fraud actors change their behavior. They've moved from robocalls to more targeted calls and some of the tools we've built for robocalls don't work as well. For what? For a live call. There's a big difference from I let someone on my network make. But you know what?
01:00:11:29 - 01:00:28:18
Unknown
I. I very seldom get live calls. I get a call from a damn computer that sounds like a live person that then if I stay on long enough, goes to a live person who I ask, why don't they get a real job? Because there's plenty of jobs out there in society now instead of being a crook. So why is there a difference here?
01:00:28:24 - 01:00:47:24
Unknown
So in that that would be a prerecorded call. But I still think enforcement against the fraudsters is is really the key there, because they're going to keep adapting as the rules and the protections. Change doesn't mean we shouldn't keep adding more protections. But they will always keep working to try to get around them. I got it. That's what a crook does.
01:00:48:03 - 01:01:06:24
Unknown
They look for the the and by the way, these are crooks. They look for the weakest link in the fence. So I came to this hearing hoping that I would hear from some of you. And I did hear from a Sanders review what we can do to stop not not to slow down. We've been slowing down forever, but to stop these folks.
01:01:08:07 - 01:01:32:11
Unknown
Anybody have anything that Congress can do to stop them or. I haven't asked you a question yet, Mr. Rudolph. You referenced you received a lone robocall. Right. Yeah, I have. I've taxes, lone robocalls. And by the way, it's the same voice, the same computer, the same call, sometimes called from my neighbor's phone, by the way. So I don't know if that's illegal now or not.
01:01:33:04 - 01:02:01:25
Unknown
I had a neighbor that got a call from his own phone number one time. I mean, this is crazy. This is crazy stuff that this country doesn't need in their economy. Keep going. So so your long robocall. I would I would strongly suggest that's domestic originated and that's an area that I would call gray area telemarketing. So in this case right now, we don't have we track thousands of active campaigns per week and current enforcement efforts are just working on the highest volume.
01:02:02:13 - 01:02:25:00
Unknown
Prioritize campaigns. So your specific robocall, if you can get your state or you can get the FCC to put that on the priority list, that's one that we've got the tools and the techniques to diffuse. There's just not enough manpower to to, you know, have a priority list that goes more than ten, 15 campaigns deep So we can get we can start working, you know, 50, 100 campaigns deep on a week to week basis.
01:02:25:12 - 01:02:45:02
Unknown
The FCC has showed effectively, you know, that the higher volume campaigns can be stopped. Just for the record, if any of you know how many these are done out of state versus in country Out of country, I would love to know that information. Thank you all. This is a bunch of crap. I'll just tell you, we need to stop this.
01:02:45:02 - 01:03:15:10
Unknown
This is not good for anybody and for the robo callers out there, go get a damn job. Thank you very much, Senator Tester. Senator, events, lawyers for Question Time. Great. Thank thank you, Mr. Chair. And I agree, Senator Tester. And my questions are going to pick up largely in the same vein. Mr. Burkett. The thing that I struggle with sort of reviewing materials that my staff prepared for me for for this hearing and just obviously experiencing this particular problem as a as a human being.
01:03:15:21 - 01:03:42:08
Unknown
I mean, I you know, my my own mom just a just a couple of weeks ago sort of called me and gave me the quick hits of a particular scam that had been that had been targeted her. And it seems like we keep on tinkering around the edges here a little bit. We sort of do these little things and maybe they slow it down to Senator Tester's point, but we're fundamentally allowing crooks to prey on of the most vulnerable people in our country, people who are living on fixed incomes and so forth.
01:03:42:08 - 01:04:21:20
Unknown
And I guess I'm just wondering if we were willing to do something big and. It's one of the few things maybe that you could get bipartisan majorities in this House or this chamber to do. If we wanted to do something really big here, what could actually stop this right. So the example that we talked about or that I was talking about earlier just with a friend is, you know, you ban robo callers from calling a particular number, but then let's say an individual goes and signs up on something online and they don't read the 75 pages of fine print on one of those pages of fine print effectively signs their number up to be robo
01:04:21:20 - 01:04:40:14
Unknown
called. And that opens up the floodgates that allows criminals to go after them. I'm wondering, what can we actually do to stop this thing? I want to pick up where Senator Tester left off. I thank you, Senator, for the question. I think one of the challenges here is the phone system, by its nature, is a series of interconnected networks.
01:04:40:14 - 01:04:59:27
Unknown
So the providers that are providing service to us, all they know is like your mailman would know what's what's the address? Where is this going? They don't know what's inside the contents. So that's the fundamental challenge. And what we do and trace back we trace back the illegal calls. And we had five, six, seven, eight providers that all touch it away and mixes them with legal traffic as well.
01:05:00:08 - 01:05:22:22
Unknown
So I think that's where I think what is big is criminal enforcement. It's it's the theme that I'm going to keep heading here, because if even if we stopped every single robocall that the criminals who do this, their day job is still defrauding Americans and they'll just find a new version. So the only way to get them to stop defrauding Americans is criminal enforcement.
01:05:22:22 - 01:05:45:25
Unknown
Do we have a sense of how many these people are actually in America versus how many of them are overseas? So so in our experience, it varies a little bit based on the type of call. So the pure fraud robo calls, the pure fraud vishing calls, voice phishing calls, etc., those are predominantly coming from overseas. The unsolicited telemarketing calls, those may originate here and be done by people here.
01:05:45:25 - 01:06:03:27
Unknown
But to what Megan said before, we one of the reasons it's hard to collect fines against them is they pop up a new shell company, dissolved the old one and are now doing new robocalls under new name. And I do think there are some laws that might apply and that might make that criminal. And where are they coming from, the ones overseas?
01:06:03:27 - 01:06:32:14
Unknown
I mean, are there particular areas? You know, you sort of hear about Eastern Europe or Nigeria, sort of where are these things actually coming from? A lot Are from India, some are from Dominican Republic, some other countries as well. But India is a big portion of the calls. And has there been any effort sort of diplomatically, legally, to interface with some of the countries where this fraud is most common and actually use the extraordinary leverage the United States has to bring some of these folks to justice?
01:06:32:14 - 01:06:52:21
Unknown
Or is there sort of an attitude like once it's in another country, it's such small ball things relative to other international crime? We don't focus on it. But of course, it's not a small ball to the people who are affected by it. There has been collaboration and when there's collaboration, when our FBI works with the Central Bureau of Intelligence in India and and raids these call centers, we see the impact.
01:06:52:21 - 01:07:23:15
Unknown
YOUMAIL data will show just government imposter scams dropped immediately after those raids. So I think that's a testament to why we should keep priority sizing that, because it does work. Okay. One one final question here. We're actually going to an artificial intelligence briefing with some industry leaders later this afternoon. What what could we do to help AI platforms and social media companies shield their data or tools from being used for more elaborate, you know, family emergency scams, things like that.
01:07:23:15 - 01:07:46:10
Unknown
You know, happy to work with you on that. You know, I'm not sure how what exactly could do on the social media side. But one one thing I will say is that the TPA right now makes illegal robocalls to cell phones. And robocalls are making calls with a prerecorded or artificial voice. So I think they're just one thing there is the TPA I do believe applies.
01:07:46:12 - 01:08:10:03
Unknown
Okay, great. Thanks, Mr. Sherrill. Thank you, Senator Vance. Senator Klobuchar. Thank you, Mr. Chair. A lot of questions here. I'll go fast. First of all, we know that after the Trace Act passed in 2019, after the new FCC rules were in place, the number of scam robocalls declined by almost half. Now we're having all kinds of new issues.
01:08:10:03 - 01:08:35:08
Unknown
And Mr. Brochu, you noticed in your noted in your testimony that we that there is collaboration between industry and the FCC. How can we make sure that tracing illegal calls to their origin results in actual enforcement action? So I think what we've seen the FCC approach with the cease and desist, I think it's been highly effective. They've targeted certain campaigns.
01:08:35:08 - 01:08:51:01
Unknown
They dropped off the face of the earth almost. So I think I think we're making great progress. I think the more we do that, some of the rules the FCC did about know your your provider, I think it's a process. And over time that is going to keep going in the right direction. So I think we've done a lot of great work there.
01:08:51:21 - 01:09:36:07
Unknown
Good. Ms. Sanders, why do you think, particularly these telemarketing calls that these volumes are so high? It was I mean, I was just looking we've got so, so many people, 221 million numbers registered on the on the do not call list. And still we're seeing a number of people call about violations. What solution to reprioritize here. So first, let me say that I believe that the number of scam calls there have appeared to be reduced because there's been a reorganization or re categorization of many of those calls, many of the calls that had previously been identified as scams have now been identified as telemarketing calls.
01:09:36:07 - 01:10:11:17
Unknown
And as Mr. Book has said, most of the telemarketing calls originate in the in the United States. We think that what needs to be done is the FCC should adopt a quick acting, temporary restraining order type of methodology. And once a voice service provider is found to have repeatedly after notice processed scam or telemarketing calls, they should be suspended immediately from the robocall mitigation database that will cost them money.
01:10:12:00 - 01:10:39:19
Unknown
And even if they after they have, that'll make that'll be an incentive to be more careful. That's correct. Okay. All right. When I get a voice cloning, Senator Vance mentioned this. We actually had I had someone I know that got one of these calls, his son serving in the Marines deployed. So I knew his deployed, didn't know where they get a call because they'd scraped his voice off the Internet asking for money to be delivered to somewhere in Texas.
01:10:39:20 - 01:11:04:04
Unknown
I've had two other military families tell me the story in Minnesota. I don't this is unbelievable to me. So what our service providers, Mr. Burger King, what are they doing to get ahead of these robo calls made using voice calling? These are obviously targeted ones with the person's voice, but all kinds of things could happen. And what can we do, Mr. Rudolph, to mitigate this?
01:11:05:04 - 01:11:31:09
Unknown
Thank you. You know, the voice service providers take protecting their customers very seriously. They are always looking at the greatest technology they've they've implemented blocking, labeling. They have analytics running on their network. So I think they will continue to try to find out how they can identify those scams and how they can take action accordingly. One of the things with our traceback effort, whether it's a robo call or one of those calls, we can trace those back.
01:11:31:09 - 01:11:56:26
Unknown
We can find out who's making them. We can find out who put it on the network. So I think trace back will be a really important part of stopping those going forward as well. Mm hmm. Your specific use case is a is a targeted attack. And based on the investigations that we've done so far and similar attacks, those are threat actors who have gotten a personal phone and a personal phone number, just like anybody going into a store to get a device.
01:11:56:27 - 01:12:21:03
Unknown
So those are extremely hard for a communication provider to deal with. It looks just like a customer making those phone calls. Yeah, I'm not actually, I'm just using an example. Then it could get worse, right? Absolutely. To the voice of General in that they know a famous commander or something anything and it would go to all the military families or it would go to people thinking it's a political person and turns into a robocall.
01:12:21:04 - 01:12:49:10
Unknown
So I do think this adds to the danger. Last thing, at robo texts, there were over 12 billion spam texts to Americans just last month. I think I got half of them. And these texts often include links that install malware, malware and spyware and a consumer's device. In March, the FCC adopted rules with Sanders. What other measures should they consider to go with these illegal robo texts?
01:12:50:05 - 01:13:20:06
Unknown
We have recommended to the commission that it adopt special security rules for robo texts that include URLs just because of this significant damage. Congress could also pass regulations that are statutes that provided more protection for consumers once they've had their money stolen from their bank accounts. There are are that would be a big help as well. All Right.
01:13:20:11 - 01:13:30:08
Unknown
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator. Senator Welch, you recognize that?
01:13:33:01 - 01:14:07:24
Unknown
Thank you very much. Mean, you're hearing the incredible frustration all of us have heard Senator Advance, Senator Tester, Senator Klobuchar. I mean, it's really driving our constituents crazy. Vermont, we have three and a half small state, three and a half million robocalls just last month. It's like six calls per Vermonter, per Vermonter. And it's really it's really, really unsettling, especially to older people who think they may be getting a call from a grandchild or a son or a daughter, and they have to pick it up and figure out what's going on.
01:14:07:24 - 01:14:41:14
Unknown
And I know you're trying to do stuff, but it's not working. It's not working the way it needs to. You know, I joined Senator Luhan and Senator Markey in asking the FCC to align its do not call registry guidelines with those of the FTC, as well as prohibit telemarketers from calling consumers without explicit consent. Ms. SANDERS Do you believe these actions would benefit consumers?
01:14:41:26 - 01:15:12:02
Unknown
And what additional steps can Congress take to push the FCC and better protect consumers from robo calls? Thank you for the question, Senator. We have been pushing the FCC for months now to simply reiterate that the language in its current regulations mean what it says, and instead the FCC has proposed regulation that would reduce protections from the current regulations.
01:15:12:18 - 01:15:46:08
Unknown
And we've been very afraid of this. So actually. Why is that? Why are they doing that? We are not sure whether it's a misunderstanding or whether the lead generators and the sellers who are benefiting from telemarketing calls have gotten to them, frankly. But the proposed regulation or anything like it is very dangerous. The FCC regulations 20 years ago explicitly requiring that every telemarketing call is only legal if it's prerecorded.
01:15:46:15 - 01:16:15:09
Unknown
If the consumer has provided a signed written consent allowing that caller to to make calls to to that consumer. And the proposed regulations would would allow more calls per consent, would not require writing. And so I can't tell you why they're issued whether proposed. But I can say that if you can encourage the FCC not to proceed in this way, it would be beneficial.
01:16:15:12 - 01:16:45:22
Unknown
All right. Let me move on to a question for Mr. Rudolph. It's about generative A.I. And, you know, there's some argument that that could help actually push back on the scammers, but it also obviously is a tool that is going to be used by scammers, especially generating a familiar voice. Can you tell me how the evolving landscape for generative AI impact the ongoing efforts to combat fraudulent communications and protect consumers?
01:16:47:12 - 01:17:12:01
Unknown
First, I'd like to recognize your state as well. There's robocall platforms or robocall operations that refuse to call Vermont. That state's too hot to call. So your constituents benefit from your attorney general's work. Attorneys general is working in that regard. On the topic of general of A.I., clearly threat actors of of flocked to it. It's it allows them it allows one person to do the work of hundreds.
01:17:12:11 - 01:17:42:23
Unknown
General A.I. doesn't have ethics or questions about what it's doing as it's affecting social engineering on our side, on the good guys side, defending against, you know, what's going industry. A senator earlier showed a short a blank piece piece of paper as a as a robo call mitigation plan general of a I can or a large language model can rip through the robocall mitigation database filings and actually synthesize and understand if there are sufficient or lacking sufficient controls.
01:17:43:03 - 01:18:08:19
Unknown
So that's a great place where we could apply that technology and and probably discard half the entries in that database in an afternoon or a week of work. Hmm. Ms.. SANDERS Again, thank you. The stir and shake. And I want to go through it. You know it. But how can the FCC incentivize providers to use the available tools to block calls?
01:18:10:10 - 01:18:49:27
Unknown
I think the FCC has done a very good job at implementing stir shaken. And the problem with Sir shaken is not the particular technology. It's the fact that there's this whole other method for robo callers to use borrowed numbers, rotating numbers for as as Mr. Rudolf explained for a minute or for a particular call, and the ability of robo callers to use the numbering resources or misuse them in this way completely, the whole purpose of stir shaken.
01:18:50:10 - 01:19:15:19
Unknown
So I think now it's time for the FCC to to drill down on the numbering resources, misuse and thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Senator Waltz. Senator Hickenlooper, Your Eminence. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank all of you. What a fascinating issue that I mean, you look at some of the issues around the world, this seems relatively small.
01:19:15:19 - 01:19:49:14
Unknown
And yet when you talk to constituents in any of our states, we see this is top of mind, something that drives people batty. I mean, just they they can't can't function. Ms. SAUNDERS A number of cybersecurity experts have raised the issue of some companies functioning as consent forms. They're essentially tricking the consumers into, you know, they may be browsing a website, but they're they're tricked into basically signing on to as a consent to receive robocalls.
01:19:50:13 - 01:20:23:05
Unknown
And first, I can't imagine how anyone, whether anyone people actually intentionally would do that. I guess they must. Anyway, the FTC has launched investigations into companies who are behaving this way, acting as consent forms. And my question to you is, do you believe the that a stronger cybersecurity practices or clearer online disclosures would be sufficient? There would be success for protections for consumers who obviously don't want to get the calls?
01:20:24:07 - 01:20:54:26
Unknown
No, sir, I do not. I think that disclosures are unfortunately uniformly ineffective at protecting consumers. I think the problem needs to be that the rules need to be sufficiently clear that the sellers who are using the telemarketers to make these calls and benefiting from these calls will be much more careful who which callers they employ to make the calls.
01:20:55:07 - 01:21:27:09
Unknown
Because If they're not careful, they will be zinged with a t a class action. And unfortunately, although I understand the frustration of the Chamber of Commerce with inappropriate class actions at the moment, the danger of class actions is also one of the prime ways that incentivizes sellers and callers to comply with the law. So we want the law to be clear, and we want the law to create those incentives to comply with it.
01:21:27:18 - 01:21:27:25
Unknown
Right.
01:21:29:25 - 01:21:57:18
Unknown
And Mr. Rudolf, I would ask you just and this is off my staff of chide later, but I'm curious. It seems like there's a market there. This is so frustrating to people that A, for a relatively low monthly cost, lots of people, I think, would would buy protection. In other words, know, does generative. I have the potential to really effectively protect people from these kinds of of scammers.
01:21:58:26 - 01:22:19:07
Unknown
Going back to the question you just asked, Margo, I want to really reinforce the robocall operator who can use tens of thousands or millions of numbers to contact you. If you think about what we can do on a device, it's very easy to block an individual number while it's not actually officially signaling to that company here to get my consent back.
01:22:19:16 - 01:22:41:11
Unknown
But by blocking that single number, you're preventing it from communicating with you. If we can require companies, when you grant consent to say, I'm going to consent to that one number. Right. And if they if if a bot granted it or you accidentally unintentionally granted, Elisa was pinned to that one number and you can control that caller originating from that one number and revoke that consent.
01:22:41:21 - 01:23:04:13
Unknown
So if we can just change how we change our policies about when you've got an entity and how many numbers it tries to rotate through to evade these tools that we have in our hand, you don't need generative AI. You just need to make sure that you pin robo operations, robo communications to using a number which matches their identity as they communicate that with you.
01:23:04:21 - 01:23:49:09
Unknown
Interesting. Yeah, Great. Mr. Brown, in your testimony, you described how businesses, businesses use automated messages to reach their customers. So when these bad actors flood an individual with robo calls, people lose their trust in it answering the phone. The best example I always I my my vote, my phone if I were to call you comes I, you know, doesn't give my number because whether for whatever right or wrong reason, sometimes rarely a constituent or a journalist might decide they want to get a hold of me frequently.
01:23:50:05 - 01:24:10:29
Unknown
So I have you know, caller ID blocked. No one will take my call. So I have to send someone a text before they'll take my call because they think that that is always going to be a robo call, whereas now the robo guys are so smart that they never use it anymore. I keep trying to convince my even my family that they should accept blocked numbers, but they don't anyway, year round.
01:24:11:27 - 01:24:47:14
Unknown
How would I Would you think small businesses would benefit if we could reduce the volume of of illegal or unwanted calls? Thank you for the question. I think small businesses are victimized, fraudulent, fraudulent and illegal calls in much the same way that Ms.. Sanders was talking about consumers at the front end. So I do think the the steps Congress has taken to prevent caller ID spoofing to try and clean up the ecosystem in some of the work that Josh and the industry trade scrap traceback group do is really important to try to instill or protect confidence in the calling ecosystem.
01:24:47:14 - 01:25:11:16
Unknown
So people do want to pick up their phone. Small businesses both make calls and receive calls and I think everyone has benefited If there can be trust that. Who's calling you is who it purports to be and not an overseas scammer, for example. Yeah, the small businesses I know are irate because they have to take every call and so they are the ones that are constantly distracted at certain times of the day when the robo calls are coming in, waves.
01:25:12:09 - 01:25:21:01
Unknown
Anyway, thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules to be here. I yield back to the chair. Thank you so much, Senator Hickenlooper. Senator Rosen, you're recognized.
01:25:24:05 - 01:25:49:09
Unknown
Senator Rosen, we cannot hear you right now. Oh, you. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can, Senator four Oh, perfect. Thank you. All right. Technology is great when it when it works. And sometimes technology's not so great when that gives you a million phone calls all at once. So there you go. Thank you, everybody, for being here today.
01:25:49:09 - 01:26:12:27
Unknown
And I'm going to just right into it. I'm scams, of course, in Nevada, because according to the FTC, in 2022 alone, Nevada had the third highest rate of fraud and the fifth highest rate of identity theft. So every year, millions of Americans, of course, we know, including many of my constituents, fall victim to these predatory robo callers. They scammers.
01:26:12:27 - 01:26:39:22
Unknown
They create elaborate schemes through robocalls. We see their government agencies or other entities attempting really just to convince people not to provide their personal identifiable information or that they're legitimate. And so, for example, Nathan, as one of my constituents in Las Vegas, he's a veteran of the Air Force, the U.S. Air Force. He wrote to my office sharing about a spam call he received from the veterans benefits.
01:26:39:22 - 01:27:06:01
Unknown
They asked him to refinance his mortgage. He said at one point he was receiving 10 to 15 calls a day from this veterans benefits center. But thankfully, Nathan recognized the scam. Many others don't. And veterans like him who serve our country should not be targeted with these kinds of calls. It's unacceptable. We have to do more to protect all of our constituents and combatants of criminal schemes.
01:27:06:11 - 01:27:34:01
Unknown
So, Ms.. Saunders, what advice would you give to Nevadans and of course to everyone, particularly in more vulnerable communities, perhaps like seniors and veterans who are targeted by scammers and are impacted at, I would say, disproportionate rates? We have thank you for the question. We have one clear piece of advice to give all Americans subscribers until this problem has been solved.
01:27:34:21 - 01:28:15:16
Unknown
If you receive a call from anybody unless are absolutely positive, you know that you know the person that has called you do not give access to your bank account or any other money to that caller. If you receive a call from somebody purporting to be from the Veteran's Administration and you want to make sure that your benefits are protected, then hang up, Look up the number for the Veterans Administration, who or whoever it is that supposedly called you and call them directly that, but don't give money and we don't do that even when we receive a solicitation from a charity that we believe in.
01:28:15:25 - 01:28:38:05
Unknown
We never, ever give over the phone payment information. Yeah, that's great advice. And we're going to have to keep putting it out there over and over again so people are continue to hear this message. But Mr. Burke, who can you tell us a little bit about how companies are working together to ensure that people are aware of these scams?
01:28:38:05 - 01:29:03:16
Unknown
We have to get it out there again over and over to keep reminding people scams like the ones that Nathan called this about. What are you doing to? Make sure your advocacy is reaching every corner of every state urban and rural. Thank you for the question. The industry is very active educating their consumers and their customers. I think they all have information out there.
01:29:03:16 - 01:29:31:14
Unknown
But one of the other things is the of voice service virtually today have protections in place to they not only stir shaken, which we talked about, but all the major wireless carriers have blocking labeling. So there's actually a lot of work to to directly protect their customers as well. Thank you. And and speaking about customers and now you're talking about your workforce, who's creating all these ways to protect consumers, workforce and technology.
01:29:31:14 - 01:30:07:21
Unknown
It's so important. You know, as a former computer programmer, I have a unique understanding of both the benefits and challenges that technology presents. So in this case, we have this great technology, but it allows for more sophisticated use of robocalls or robo. And hopefully on the same side, we have presumably enough resources to combat that. So, Ms.. Brown, law enforcement officers, they really need access to training and technology to talk about the more advanced scams, especially as we see a I start to play role in these scam robocalls.
01:30:07:21 - 01:30:38:05
Unknown
And so based on your experience, what kind of technology and training do you think Congress can support to bolster these resources as these scams just get more and more vicious? So thank you for the question, Senator. You know, I haven't given a lot of thought to specific training for state and local law enforcement, but it makes me think back to the importance of the Department of Justice and that collaborative work that the state attorneys general already doing with the Federal Communications Commission and otherwise.
01:30:38:05 - 01:31:12:00
Unknown
So my perception is there are a lot of resources that are available, some of which are similar to what Ms.. Sanders was talking about in terms of consumer facing. But I would expect that the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, can can sort of dig into those resources and help state and local law enforcement. But I will say the state attorneys general have been very active on these issues, and I think they are uniquely positioned to help state and local enforcement identify some of these more exotic, shall we say, scam attempts that my panelists were discussing.
01:31:12:00 - 01:31:31:22
Unknown
So I think it's a great area to think about, particularly, you have constituents who it sounds like may not be getting that kind of information and support now, especially as we deal with deepfakes and other things. And of course, work is going to keep working on building out our STEM workforce and keep working to protect the consumers. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for this hearing.
01:31:31:23 - 01:32:01:05
Unknown
I yield back. Senator Rosen, thank you so very much. I'm going to recognize myself for some additional questions. Mr. Rudolph, everyone is talking about A.I.. It's some degree and using it differently. Just yesterday, the chairwoman of the FCC, Jessica Rosenworcel, proposed a new notice of inquiry that would take a closer look at how artificial intelligence impacts illegal and unwanted robo calls and texts.
01:32:01:16 - 01:32:39:14
Unknown
Specifically, this would investigate how the commission might use A.I. technologies to protect consumers under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Now, Youmail specializes in stopping scam calls and texts. So thank you for that. How do you envision using artificial intelligence to protect consumers from robo calls and robotics? It's a great question. Thank you. I almost make a joke that we're going to enter a Black Mirror episode and each of us will be protected by our own bot that's going to screen every inbound communication.
01:32:39:14 - 01:33:00:25
Unknown
And eventually we've got just all these telemarketing bots talking to all these consumer protection bots and the polar ice caps melting for all the GPU's having to run that. But that joke aside, one of the suggestions I had earlier was to use a large language model to go through robocall mitigation database filings and toss out all the ones that are junk.
01:33:01:02 - 01:33:45:05
Unknown
So lessons can be trained pretty quickly to synthesize that data and understand the intent. And you know, what's what that robo call mitigation and filing would, if it's even feasible to to implement the controls at those providers. If you look at the the Herculean list of enforcement, the same thing could be done where if you wanted to investigate a communication service provider and you were given logs from that provider or given internal communications or memos that, you know, discuss the policies or controls those providers implemented an LEM could quickly process that data and come to an understanding of what was actually happening.
01:33:45:06 - 01:34:21:29
Unknown
So I would say, you know, we're really facing a problem of stealing enforcement labor to, you know, make industry compliant here. And that's a great place to deploy that technology. I very much appreciate that response and also bringing attention to that line of questioning from Senator Markey around how so many are thumbing their nose at a requirement with the mitigation and submitting blank documents, documents that are intended to be rude or menus or whatever nonsense is also being submitted.
01:34:21:29 - 01:34:47:23
Unknown
It shows that it's not working, that there's a loophole somewhere that's been created, that there's no attention to the prosecution side, if you will, or the requirements from a mitigation plan. And using tools to identify where those are is going to be critically important to ensure that we're able to enforce the mitigation plan when someone is found to be doing this illegal activity.
01:34:48:16 - 01:35:16:26
Unknown
I also appreciate, Ms.. Sanders, your response to several colleagues questions about what could be done in the area of looking at where traffic is being carried. Data that I've seen suggests that not all carriers may be knowingly doing this, but it seems to be that there's a smaller number of carriers that carry more of the calls. That's revenue.
01:35:18:24 - 01:35:48:03
Unknown
If someone is told you're you're carrying these these calls that are stealing billions of dollars to American people and they do it over and over and then they submit a mitigation plan that is a blank document. It's the cost of doing business. I want to equate this to financial institutions in America who are laundering money for cartels and the cost of doing business is paying a fine.
01:35:49:12 - 01:36:18:28
Unknown
Some really smart people created these loopholes, well intentioned, but there's loopholes and people have learned to take advantage of them. What I would hope is that we can all agree to the ending of those loopholes. I, I remarked on this when this committee, the Commerce Committee, had a hearing on a rail derailment, well intentioned legislation, well-intentioned testimony, people working together.
01:36:18:28 - 01:36:56:16
Unknown
But when the rulemaking gets started, then there's all kinds of stuff submitted into the federal registry. A lot of them are loopholes that get codified into the rules. Creating loopholes. Loopholes can lead to problems as well-intentioned as they may be for whoever's submitting them. I hope that we can peel back the curtains on this to stop this. With the transition to telecommunications being digital, so an analog, Mr. Barclay, you can trace this stuff back wherever it goes.
01:36:56:16 - 01:37:28:06
Unknown
Mr. Rudolph, You can stop it because you know where it's coming from. It's digital. You can follow it. So why is this so hard? If the traffic is in a small area, let's work with them either to create the technical capability or for the small carriers to have those capabilities, but for the whole industry also to self-police, to say you're the problem.
01:37:28:14 - 01:37:48:04
Unknown
You need to stop this. Because if a small carrier has an agreement with one of the major carriers in America and they're knowingly doing this. When I look at 12% of the traffic that is coming from some of the bigger names in the country. Stop it. And I'm hoping that we can get there. So I appreciate that, that line of questioning, those responses.
01:37:48:21 - 01:38:22:02
Unknown
I'll close with this this particular question towards you, Ms.. Sanders, around air generated scam calls. Now, we also know there's an urgent need to mitigate risks and establish responsible guardrails around A.I.. And we've seen many examples around here. Scammers are cloning people, children's voices. We heard the testimony from our colleagues with veterans or active military whose voices are being spoofed all to steal financial resources from families.
01:38:23:10 - 01:38:34:22
Unknown
Now, Miss Saunders, yes or no, do current laws and regulations around robo calls cover these types of air generated scam calls?
01:38:38:01 - 01:39:04:15
Unknown
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act has been found to cover robot generated scam calls and telemarketing calls. Yes. Would anyone else respond to that? Mr. Brown. And I think the view is the CPA is well-suited to adapt to that sort of new technology. And I was just going to commend to you a report that the Chamber put out on a bipartisan basis.
01:39:04:15 - 01:39:27:07
Unknown
They have an air commission, and I think there's a lot to learn from the A.I. that the chairwoman of the FCC has kicked off about how all of this will play out. But I do think the TPA reaches some of these voice cloned concerns. Mr. Burke. I concur. Mr. Rouda. I think anybody who's voice, voice calling to make calls doesn't care about the CPA.
01:39:27:07 - 01:39:54:22
Unknown
So they're they're committing criminal acts and disobey. They would ignore it. I appreciate misunderstood. The problem is that the TCP is not effective against scam calls. It's effective against telemarketing calls, but it's not effective against scam calls. And the only way to stop the scam calls is to deal with the the providers who are providing access to the communications network for those scammers.
01:39:55:06 - 01:40:27:01
Unknown
And we don't have a a law like the CPA that applies to the to the voice service providers. Nor are we necessarily recommending that there be one. So, Mr. Brown, you don't need to worry. But we what we are recommending is that the FCC be encouraged or enabled, whichever is appropriate, to act much more quickly against those problem voice service that are inserting the bad callers, the bad calls into the network.
01:40:27:11 - 01:40:54:18
Unknown
I appreciate that. I'm concerned that it does not. I think it handles calls in one format, but I'm concerned in this other space as well. And look, understandably, when it was written, this technology did not exist to the degree that it exists today. One of the faults with many pieces of legislation is when it's thought up, and by the time it passes, technology has accelerated.
01:40:54:18 - 01:41:22:22
Unknown
You know a generation or two ahead of what the well intentioned proposal was as well. But that's where the rule making bodies are supposed to keep up with what's happening here. And also industry. When something's bad is happening that cannot be self policed, ask for help. How do we stop? Nonsense. $39 billion being stolen in a year. That should rise to any prosecutor's attention.
01:41:23:19 - 01:41:48:05
Unknown
If the Department of Justice is not going to do this, then how do we find other partners that are willing to? How do you work with the FCC such that if a fine is put forth and then there's a prosecution, then what? And I'll also say that if there's a small number of entities that are responsible, the majority of traffic, and they've been warned about it and it continues.
01:41:48:21 - 01:42:11:07
Unknown
Something needs to be done there, because, again, it's the cost of business. It's revenue. And if you can make $100 million and pay a $10 million fine, some people are willing to take that deal. And it's just not right, because who's at the end of this misunderstood? You have some thoughts on what Congress could be doing to protect Americans from air generated scam calls and robotics?
01:42:11:07 - 01:42:16:15
Unknown
And I'll ask the rest of the panel to address that as well. And then we'll close out the hearing.
01:42:19:09 - 01:42:49:00
Unknown
I think that I've articulated it already. I think that the FCC is uniquely poised to be the prime policeman on the block regarding the voice service providers. What I want to explain is that the reason the terminating providers who are all in agreement that these calls should not be processed. The reason they cannot stop them, they can't block them is because the scam calls are mixed with the legal calls.
01:42:49:09 - 01:43:16:26
Unknown
So it's impossible for them for the terminating providers to identify them. If I misunderstood, if I may interject, I'm a former public utility commissioner, so while while the calls may be mixed in, they can tell where the calls are. And then they also know if the investigators are doing their job. You're burying this traffic from you know you know, you know, Mr. John, in whatever location is, whether it's in the United States or in other part of the world.
01:43:17:05 - 01:43:45:02
Unknown
Why are you carrying all this traffic where it appears in 90% of it is as bad stuff as well? Well, I'm not sure that the terminating providers can always identify exactly where the took the calls are originating. They see that. All they see is that the calls are coming from the upstream intermediate provider. And so the key is to somehow encourage all of the providers in the network to only carry legal calls or else it will cost them.
01:43:45:22 - 01:44:11:01
Unknown
And we've provided in our testimony in the last section an example of how the legal callers can use their power in the marketplace to encourage their voice service providers to only carry their calls and and thus isolate the illegal calls, which we think would enable the terminating providers to better identify them and block them. I'm going to go to Mr..
01:44:11:01 - 01:44:29:23
Unknown
Brokaw. I'll come back to Mr. Brown. How are you able to follow the calls? And if. How do you know where they're coming from? So that that's what our traceback process accomplishes, because as Mr. said, often all provider knows who they got from in our process does that. We just go hop by. Hop by hop. How'd you get the call from?
01:44:29:23 - 01:44:48:15
Unknown
Who did you get the call from? Until we find out exactly where it came from. That's proprietary technology. It's our we have a portal that all the providers log into and. They do it in the portal. We have automation. If someone doesn't respond, they they get shamed for not responding in time. They get warnings. The provider downstream gets shamed.
01:44:48:15 - 01:45:15:20
Unknown
If they to take traffic from from robocalls and all this information is made available to the enforce. Repeat the last part, Mr. Burkle. What happens if they take calls from so folks that are responsible for robocalls or where they're known to come from? So the way our we've designed our system, if providers upstream is the originator of the illegal robo calls we trace, the downstream provider knows that they're they they are put on notice that their upstream partner keeps giving them bad traffic.
01:45:15:20 - 01:45:40:02
Unknown
And again, all of this information makes its way to the enforcement. So based on that common carrier or whatever the agreement is between one carrier and another, your technology allows for those two entities to know that there's a problem with these fraudulent calls. Yeah, absolutely. And we see two to Ms.. Sanders point. We see all the time carriers taking action.
01:45:40:02 - 01:46:16:15
Unknown
We see them fire their wholesale providers. The challenges because it's an interconnected network. As we've you know, I've heard from providers that said, okay, we got too much bad traffic from these providers and fired all of them. Calls still hit their network. It just was another hop or two that were added in between and. Mr. Rudolph With that being said, where traffic can be identified, Youmail can stop this from hitting a consumer dramatically reduce stop to protect people are is Youmail also is are is you able to identify where it originates.
01:46:17:05 - 01:46:49:19
Unknown
So so as calls reach the consumer right we've got to two very amazing ways to understand which communication providers we're the originators the gateway providers for those traced back if the call not a test it using search engine and if it has a stir shaken packet basically with it, it's clear as day that these are the seven voice providers that are currently harboring that account that's making the, the loan calls, uh, you know, as identifying as a VA or interrupting their centers hike.
01:46:49:20 - 01:47:05:25
Unknown
So, you know, if you ask me right now, you know, who are the providers who have these calls, we can look at stir, shaken and get a lot of that. And then the ones we don't see, the stir shaken yet carry the trace back process can illuminate that. What we are missing is the signal to industry. Those specific calls are bad.
01:47:06:02 - 01:47:27:03
Unknown
Knock those off. Right. The FCC has done that twice. Auto warranty calls and student loan calls. And now providers have a clear signal from the FCC, don't carry those. And what happens is trace back runs or you know, will directly contact provider and say, hey, this call looks like it's committing fraud. Maybe you should knock it off. That account gets kicked off that provider and goes and finds a new home.
01:47:27:11 - 01:47:48:18
Unknown
So unless the entire ecosystem is notified, don't take this account on. Someone's going to look at that new sign up and think, Oh, that's revenue. I'm going to take that new account on and kind look the other way about whatever that account might be, communicating what process is required to ensure the whole ecosystem knows about the one fraudulent call and the communication to the one company.
01:47:48:18 - 01:48:14:08
Unknown
Can you say again, sorry, what would be required to share that information that you may or may be having with one carrier or, anyone maybe having with one carrier to say this called fraudulent? You should kick it. You should probably kick it off so that it goes across the entire ecosystem. So we work we work regularly every other week with the FCC, and we go through the prioritize calls that are on that hotlist of of investigations.
01:48:14:08 - 01:48:42:14
Unknown
And we'll provide that. And those discussions about, hey, these are the providers that we are seeing that are carrying those calls presently. Appreciate that. Ms.. Brown. You want me to address I which I think is what you started with a little while ago in this piece with I also given the response to this associated with being able to narrow where there may be a fraudulent call with the carrier is is there something that could be done to share it within the ecosystem?
01:48:42:14 - 01:48:59:14
Unknown
Is there something that the companies could adopt to share in through that process? Is it something the FCC should be doing with existing authorities that this is just this is what's going to happen every time that we see this and it's proven that there's a fraudulent call? If you could touch on those three areas, sure, I will do my best.
01:48:59:14 - 01:49:24:12
Unknown
Thank You, Senator. I'm actually sort of optimistic and I think the chamber would be that I will sort of juice up what the ITG and Youmail are already doing. And I think so that gives me optimism that those anti-fraud efforts and the ability to detect bad traffic is going to get better over time. And I think at a recent workshop the FCC held back in September with the National Science Foundation, they heard about that as well.
01:49:24:12 - 01:49:47:22
Unknown
So that's kind of my response on the eye piece of this or the I approach. It sounded to me from what Mr. Rudolph and Mr. Berger were saying, that the FCC is intimately involved in getting this information. I think it's maybe a question of scale to address the issue that you were raising. Again, maybe maybe some additional technology can help there.
01:49:47:22 - 01:50:20:29
Unknown
I don't have visibility whether it's a manual process or if it's really phone calls with the Enforcement bureau, which it probably is, which makes me sad for the Enforcement Bureau staff. But again, I think there's a reason to be sort of cautiously optimistic that maybe they haven't cracked the code, but there can be additional steps. And then if the FCC can be encouraged to do more of what it did in the auto warranty space and student loan space, I think the report the FCC gave to Congress under the traced act had some really remarkable data in it about, the decrease in calls after they took those actions.
01:50:20:29 - 01:50:44:20
Unknown
So I'm sort of cautiously optimistic about that process working. I don't see right now a need for new regulatory authorities to be given because it feels like that process is actually working fairly well, even if it's a little opaque. Sorry for that long answer. No, I appreciate response very much. Thank you all for being here today. And to all my colleagues for attending today.
01:50:45:27 - 01:51:29:08
Unknown
This is important testimony and as you all know, an immense interest with the American people in this space and immense frustration with the American people about what happens to them every minute of every day as well. And I want to commend you for helping to solve this challenge, for helping consumers one at a time, for providing support to help the process understand where and what is happening every day, looking at the ability of rules that exist, exploring that may be needed to to make things better in this space.
01:51:29:08 - 01:52:02:21
Unknown
So thank you so very much. And remaining challenge and a very complex issue. With that, I will close the hearing and should members have additional questions for the witnesses. For the record, I ask that they submit them to the committee within two weeks and witnesses will have an additional two weeks to respond. Thank you, everybody.