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Bipartisan TRACED Act Enhances Penalties for Illegal Robocalls

12/7/18

By: Matt Foree
U.S. Senator John Thune (R-S.D.), the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the committee and author of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), recently announced the introduction of the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (“TRACED”) Act.  Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the chairman of the committee’s Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation and the Internet is a cosponsor of the bill.
The TRACED Act is introduced in a climate of increased frustration from consumers about robocalls that are not being sufficiently addressed by the TCPA.  Senator Thune explained that “the TRACED Act targets robocall scams and other intentional violations of telemarketing laws so that when authorities do catch violators, they can be held accountable. Existing civil penalty rules were designed to impose penalties on lawful telemarketers who make mistakes. This enforcement regime is totally inadequate for scam artists, and we need do more to separate enforcement of carelessness and other mistakes from more sinister actors.”
Significantly, the bill broadens the authority of the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) to levy civil penalties of up to $10,000 per call against those violating telemarketing restrictions. The bill also provides new criminal fines of up to $10,000 per violation, with the opportunity to treble such amount if the activity is intentional.  The bill also extends the window for the FCC to catch and take civil enforcement action against intentional violations to three years after a robocall is placed, instead of only one year. Furthermore, the bill brings together several federal agencies as well as state attorneys general and other non-federal entities to identify and report to Congress on improving deterrence and criminal prosecution of robocall scams. The bill also requires providers of voice services to adopt call authentication technologies to enable telephone carriers to verify that calls are legitimate before they reach consumers phones. Finally, the bill directs the FCC to initiate a rulemaking to help protect subscribers from receiving unwanted calls or texts from callers using unauthenticated numbers.  A copy of the TRACED Act is located HERE.
Senator Thune’s statement regarding the TRACED Act is located HERE  and Senator Markey’s statement is HERE .  We will continue to monitor the status of the TRACED Act and report back with updates.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Matt Foree at mforee@fmglaw.com.