Yesterday at the FCC’s open meeting, two things happened. First Chairwoman Rosenworcel addressed that she will be stepping down on January 20^th from her role at the FCC. It was announced over the weekend that Commissioner Carr will be stepping into that role in 2025.

The second thing that happened yesterday was the FCC commissioners all voted unanimously to adopt the Report and Order around enhancing the Caller ID authentication rules.

Here is what the report and order will do:

• Define “third-party authentication” to provide a clear scope of the third-party authentication practices authorized and prohibited by the new rules.
• Authorize providers with a STIR/SHAKEN implementation obligation to engage third parties to perform the technological act of digitally “signing” calls consistent with the requirements of the STIR/SHAKEN technical standards, subject to two conditions:

(1) The provider with the implementation obligation itself makes the critical “attestation-level” decisions for authenticating caller ID information associated with its calls; and

(2) All calls are signed using the certificate of the provider with the implementation obligation—not the certificate of a third party.

• Explicitly require all providers with an implementation obligation to obtain a Service Provider Code (SPC) token from the Policy Administrator and present that token to a STIR/SHAKEN Certificate Authority to obtain a digital certificate.
• Require any provider certifying to partial or complete STIR/SHAKEN implementation in the Robocall Mitigation Database to have obtained an SPC token and digital certificate and sign all its calls with that certificate, either themselves or when working with a third party to perform the technological act of signing calls.
• Adopt recordkeeping requirements for third-party authentication arrangements to monitor compliance with and enforce the Commission’s rules.

Chairwoman Rosenworcel stated the following in response to the Report and Order adoption “The scammers behind illegal robocalls are relentless. Now we close a loophole they use to send unwanted calls, they look for new ways to flood our networks with this junk. This means that the FCC– this agency needs to be just as tireless in its efforts to identify these loopholes and stop bad actors from exploiting them. That is true today, tomorrow, and in the future. Here, we take steps to close a loophole that involves STIR/SHAKEN. STIR/SHAKEN is a technology that three years ago we required carriers to use when they originate and terminate calls.” And she went on to say “…But to really stop the flood of illegal robocalls, we are going to need some bigger changes. We need Congress to fix the gaping loophole left by the Supreme Court in a decision narrowing the definition of autodialer, which substantially reduces our ability to protect consumers from junk robocalls and robo texts. We also need to make sure that when this agency issues big fines, we can hold the bad actors responsible by taking them to court, and not just rely on the Department of Justice to do so. When coupled with the work of the industry traceback group and the 49th state attorneys general I now have partnering with this agency to help stop robocalls, these changes will make a big difference.”

Check out the Caller ID Report and Order HERE.