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FCC Issues Voluntary Caller ID Authentication Best Practices for Voice Service Providers
Jan 4, 2021 TCPA World
In another year-end action as directed by Section 4(b)(7) of the TRACED Act, the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Wireline Competition Bureau (Bureau) has issued “best practices that providers of voice services may adopt as part of their implementation of effective call authentication frameworks to ensure that the calling party on a voice call is accurately identified.’’ In a Public Notice (PN) released December 22, 2020, the Bureau noted that the “best practices” are “voluntary,” but represented an “industry consensus on the best ways to ‘assist in the overall objective of mitigating robocalling when implementing call authentication frameworks’” (https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-20-1526A1.pdf).
The “best practices” derive from recommendations put forth by Call Authentication Trust Anchor Working Group of the North American Numbering Council (NANC) sought by the Bureau last February and approved by the NANC in September. The Bureau’s PN “encouraged voice service providers to follow” a number of the recommendations “when appropriate and applicable.” Specifically, the PN summarized the following recommendations in Appendix A to the PN:
Finally, the Bureau chose not to adopt two best practice recommendations relating to components of the FCC’s STIR/SHAKEN standards, noting that “voice service providers are already required to comply with those standards to satisfy our caller ID authentication rules….” (emphasis supplied). As a result, the Bureau resolved that these particular recommendations were not appropriate for inclusion “on a list of voluntary best practices” (emphasis in original).
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