Advanced Methods To Target and Eliminate Robocalls

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 64</CFR> <DEPDOC>[CG Docket Nos. 17-59, 02-278, 25-307; WC Docket No. 17-97; FCC 25-76; FR ID 319452]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Advanced Methods To Target and Eliminate Robocalls</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) proposes steps to improve the availability and accuracy of caller identification information transmitted to consumers to enable them to better understand who is calling and decide whether to answer calls. Specifically, the Commission proposes to enhance the effectiveness of STIR/SHAKEN by requiring terminating providers to transmit verified caller name or other caller identity information for presentation on a consumer's handset whenever they transmit an indication that a call has received an A-level attestation. It also seeks comment on requiring providers to use Rich Call Data (RCD) to transmit verified caller name on IP networks, whether to permit or require use of other solutions, and an alternative option to require that providers implement RCD in their IP networks for all calls. The Commission further proposes to require voice service providers to implement measures to ensure that consumers know which calls originate from outside of the United States and to prohibit spoofing of United States telephone numbers for calls that originate from outside of the United States. Finally, the Commission seeks comment on whether some of its calling-related rules can be simplified, streamlined, or eliminated, perhaps because they are outdated or have not been enforced for a substantial amount of time. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before January 5, 2026 and reply comments are due on or before February 3, 2026. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Pursuant to § 1.49 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 1.49, parties to this proceeding must file any documents in this proceeding using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS): You may submit comments, identified by CG Docket No. 17-59, WC Docket No. 17-97, and CG Docket No. 02-278, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Filers:</E> Comments may be filed electronically using the internet by accessing the Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS): <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs. See Electronic Filing of Documents in Rulemaking Proceedings,</E> 63 FR 24121 (1998). • <E T="03">Paper Filers:</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. • Filings can be sent by hand or messenger delivery, by commercial courier, or by the U.S. Postal Service. All filings must be addressed to the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. • Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings for the Commission's Secretary are accepted between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. by the FCC's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes and boxes must be disposed of before entering the building. • Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries not by the U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. • Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class Mail, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express must be sent to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. • <E T="03">People with Disabilities:</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For further information about the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ), contact John B. Adams of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-2854 or <E T="03">JohnB.Adams@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Ninth Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Seventh Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Public Notice ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ), in CG Docket No. 17-59; WC Docket No. 17-97; CG Docket Nos. 02-278 and 25-307; FCC 25-76, adopted on October 28, 2025 and released on October 29, 2025. The full text of this document is available online at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-76A1.pdf.</E> <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act Analysis:</E> The <E T="03">NPRM</E> may contain proposed new and revised information collection requirements. The Commission, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to comment on the information collection requirements described in this document, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13. In addition, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, see 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), we seek specific comment on how we might further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act:</E> Consistent with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 118-9, a summary of this document will be available on <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> <E T="03">Ex Parte Rules:</E> The proceeding the <E T="03">NPRM</E> initiates shall be treated as a “permit-but-disclose” proceeding in accordance with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. Persons making <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations must file a copy of any written presentation or a memorandum summarizing any oral presentation within two business days after the presentation (unless a different deadline applicable to the Sunshine period applies). Persons making oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations are reminded that memoranda summarizing the presentation must (1) list all persons attending or otherwise participating in the meeting at which the <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentation was made, and (2) summarize all data presented and arguments made during the presentation. If the presentation consisted in whole or in part of the presentation of data or arguments already reflected in the presenter's written comments, memoranda or other filings in the proceeding, the presenter may provide citations to such data or arguments in his or her prior comments, memoranda, or other filings (specifying the relevant page and/or paragraph numbers where such data or arguments can be found) in lieu of summarizing them in the memorandum. Documents shown or given to Commission staff during <E T="03">ex parte</E> meetings are deemed to be written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and must be filed consistent with § 1.1206(b) of the Commission's rules. In proceedings governed by § 1.49(f) of the Commission's rules or for which the Commission has made available a method of electronic filing, written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and memoranda summarizing oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations, and all attachments thereto, must, when feasible, be filed through the electronic comment filing system available for that proceeding, and must be filed in their native format ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> .doc, .xml, .ppt, searchable .pdf). Participants in this proceeding should familiarize themselves with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Discussion</HD> 1. We propose steps to improve the availability and accuracy of caller identification information transmitted to consumers to enable them to better understand who is calling and decide whether to answer calls. Specifically, we propose to enhance the effectiveness of STIR/SHAKEN by requiring terminating providers to transmit verified caller name or other caller identity information for presentation on a consumer's handset whenever they transmit an indication that a call has received an A-level attestation. We also seek comment on requiring providers to use RCD to transmit verified caller name on IP networks, and on whether to permit or require use of other solutions. Additionally, we seek comment on an alternative option to require that providers implement RCD in their IP networks for all calls. Finally, we propose to require voice service providers to implement measures to ensure that consumers know which calls originate from outside of the United States and to prohibit spoofing of United States telephone numbers for calls that originate from outside of the United States. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Need for Improved Caller Identity Information</HD> 2. We believe that our proposals will empower consumers by giving them the information they need when deciding whether to answer a call. STIR/SHAKEN has served the Commission's goals of making spoofing more difficult, improving providers' call blocking and spam labeling decisions, and increasing the overall level of trust consumers have that a particular call originated from the telephone number being presented. However, consumers often cannot be sure who is calling unless a number is stored in their contact list or otherwise recognized. STIR/SHAKEN information does not provide consumers with robust information about who is calling, and an A-level attestation indicator alone does not give consumers enough information to decide whether a call is worth answering. In the absence of accurate caller name, and possibly other caller identity information, consumers might mistakenly believe that ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 103k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━