Governor Kathy Hochul signed a pair of bills on Monday aimed at cracking down on invasive robocalls — but don’t expect the scammers to lose interest in your car’s extended warranty anytime soon.
The new legislation is aimed at pushing telecommunications companies to do more to stop the scourge of robocalls that has cost Americans billions of dollars and seeded near unanimous suspicion of unknown numbers in recent years.
“New Yorkers are fed up with annoying, predatory robocalls, and we’re taking action to stop them,” Hochul said in a statement.
The first piece of legislation codifies a recent federal rule — known by the acronym STIR/SHAKEN — requiring phone carriers to adopt protocols to digitally authenticate calls and prevent spoofing.
Under the standards, networks are able to validate the source of phone calls, allowing providers to block obviously fraudulent numbers or warn of potential spam.
A second piece of legislation signed by Hochul on Monday goes a step further, giving the state’s Public Service Commission authority to oversee compliance with the protocols.
Paul Schmitt, a research computer scientist at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute, said the oversight could close a gap in the FCC’s attempted crackdown.
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#Robocalls
#STIR/SHAKEN
