FCC to declare AI-generated voices in robocalls illegal under existing law
FCC to declare AI-generated voices in robocalls illegal under existing law
Robocalls with AI voices to be regulated under Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
Robocalls with AI voices to be regulated under Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the agency says. I'm pretty sure this puts us on the timeline where we eventually get incredible, futuristic tech, but computers and robots still sound mechanical and fake.
How does this get enforced though? They don't even enforce their no call list or cut down on junk robo calls as it is.
Don't undersell the FCC's rules around robocalling. No, we're still getting robocalls out the ass, but when it comes from US locations companies get their asses handed to them. The FCC is also the entity that's pushing the telcos to Make it possible to stop it from overseas sources. The new laws that went in place this year f***** up my twilio automation that was sending me SMS messages on server failures. All of a sudden I have a bunch of paperwork to fill out and a waiting list to be able to send an SMS via API.
If the FCC wasn't impeding robocalls as much as it is phones would be useless by now.
For the past 2 weeks I have been getting calls from a company claiming to register companies for voice search optimization. I've repeatedly told them to stop calling me, to which they respond that the calls won't relent until I sign up with their service. I've been threatened, mocked, and just straight hung up on, so now I enjoy just waisting as much of their time as possible. I filed a complaint last week, so I'm just logging all their calls to increase the inevitable fine (they're US based, all of the agents are clearly American).
I feel like most of the decent filtering of these types of calls are happening at the carrier level at this point. At least in my experience. They've been getting better at filtering them out before your phone even rings...
But I'm not sure that's how it should be. This is why regulatory agencies exist in the first place. What's the point if there is zero enforcement?
Most robo calls are not illegal as long as you follow the rules the FTC laid down.
This would have ban AI generated voices, so regardless of the content of the robo call, if it used in AI voice it would be illegal.
If the origin of the call is outside the US it's much harder to prosecute the illegal calls
Not really? You don't allow companies who don't operate in the USA to have USA based numbers. And don't allow them to spoof numbers. This way people can actually block international calls if they don't want them and it's clear from the get-go that it's not Microsoft or your state representative calling you from India.
Exactly. Laws have no meaning if you don’t enforce them or enforce them selectively.
just fucking declare robocalls illegal, jesus
politicians use them for campaigning so unlikely, but yeah they should ban robo calls that haven't been pre-authorized (having the pharmacy or whatever call should still be legal)
They are... And have been since 2009. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/do-not-call-registry/robocalls
It seems like most people are missing "under existing law"
Nothing is changing. The FCC is simply putting to a vote clarifying that "yes, the prohibitions regarding automated calling apply to AI generated voices too."
I also read that as we ain't gonna do shit
No need to do shit.
Yes just reaffirming that it’s just another law not enforced.
Let's just make robo calls illegal ok?
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/do-not-call-registry/robocalls
It's been since 2009. They need to enforce laws.
All these calls are coming from India and their government just do not give a shit. As they are all massively corrupt.
OK. Enforce it then.
Block all calls unless you can verify exactly who they're from. Block all overseas VOIP bullshit. Block calls from any country that doesn't have the same call verification rules.
Blame the Republicans in Congress.
It took until last May for the Senate to finally confirm the fifth Commissioner. Per law, they can't create new rules or regulations when there's a vacancy.
Have you noticed that 5G was getting faster and had more coverage until it more or less stopped last year? For the first time in history, Congress did not renew the FCC's spectrum auction authority. T-Mobile bought a lot of 2.5Ghz spectrum back in 2022 but the FCC couldn't grant it to them. It wasn't until a month and a half ago that they could use it... Because Congress passed a bill that granted the authority for auctions held prior to March 2023.
They've also tried going after the VOIP services that don't follow STIR/SHAKEN or allow robocallers. But they don't have enough funding to do much more than the minimum. For the very few that they can catch, they first provide a warning period for the company to remove robocallers and correct their systems. If that fails, the FCC then permits carriers to block the provider, but they can't mandate it.
Except even that's not enough. The FCC can't take actual legal action against the providers, only the robocallers. So quite often, the provider will just change their business name, list different fake people as their executives, and then rejoin the networks as if nothing ever happened. Look up One Owl Telecom - they've done this numerous times.
But its too hard to implement! Give us money! (telecoms probably)
Seems you could do all of that easily enough with asterisk or any of its variants/frontends. Bonus, you can tweak the rules as you like, on the fly.
For awhile I was getting obv scam calls from china - I neither know anyone there nor do business of any kind there. That country code would be one of the first on my blacklist.
If they banned all robocalling, wouldn't that solve it? Can a prioritisation of quality of life over marketing include the phone space? Four US states ban billboards. With an ad blocker, the internet is usable. Nitpicking which tactics can be used in robocalls won't hardly solve the vicious spread of misinformation in this way.
banned all robocalling
Oh, I didn’t realize this was literally Nazi Germany.
A slippery slope where the next thing you know, corporations aren’t people, they’re capping the unlimited anonymous campaign contributions, and ad-supported Neuralink requires informed consent.
Had me in the first half
I assume that banning all robocalls requires new legislation, whereas the regulation mentioned here didn't.
Robocalling isn't inherently bad. Utilities and such institutions that have your membership (library, gym, health care etc) should be welcome to use robocalling to notify you of useful info like emergencies or changes to their schedules. It's just the political ads, scams, and sales that need to be made illegal and punishable.
Utilities and such institutions that have your membership (library, gym, health care etc) should be welcome to use robocalling to notify you of useful info like emergencies or changes to their schedules
Those scenarios would be better handled through email or text message. Nothing that should be handled by a robocall is urgent enough to warrant disturbing people with a phone call, it should just be text or email.
An actual emergency call, requiring your immediate attention, should absolutely not be handled by robocalls. If it doesn't require immediate attention, then a call is not necessary.
The thing is, at this point, I've been so conditioned to ignore those kinds of calls, and immediately hang up if I accidentally pick one up, that I would probably miss the legitimate calls as well.
And how is this going to deter scammers?
It isn't.
How about this: if I get a robocall advertising a product/service or a politician's campaign I get that product or service for FREE and if it's for a politician they lose $25k from their pac or Superfund for each report (which gets donated to their opponent)?
yeah then you'll have even more GOC money funding fake "Democratic Party" robocalls.
Yea except if we have a publishable reporting system (for robocalls, like the ones you're making up rn) it won't work like that will it? Being that the concept changes the status quo... This isn't super difficult to figure out if you try ;)
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Sounds like a semantic debate. Yes, third parties exist but they don't get enough votes to win in a FPTP voting system.
I'll concede if you can show me where a third party has won a POTUS spot in the last 60 years.Sadly the history tells a different story.
Maybe the 25k can just go to me as a victim, then.
Scammers who are just recording their voice: "Oh ok we're good"
The TCPA, a 1991 US law, bans the use of artificial or prerecorded voices in most non-emergency calls "without the prior express consent of the called party."
Prerecorded calls are not allowed too.
Right, so in other words this will change absolutely nothing just like that 1991 law did.
I, Telemarker.
Ngl, it's hard to get down a mountain on those things...
But, my car insurance? Who's going to be telling me about the extended warranty?
I accidentally deleted that voice mail from the public benefits department a couple days ago and they haven't called back yet ☹️
didn't this happen a long time ago under Bill Clinton or something? what the fuck happened?
Wow this is interesting, I didn't know there were existing limits on using prerecorded and generic (non-impersonating) robot calls. Including from campaigns but they have certain special limits.
I wonder if the CRTC has similar rules in Canada.
This has made me wonder.. have any other europeans ever had problems with these?
I don't recall ever having been called by a robot.
One of the reasons might be that a) robo calls are illegal here, and b) if someone uses them, they are easy to hunt down.
I once got some robocalls, all of the same makeup telling me I had won a car and should call a premium number to claim it (Ha!). I just reported those numbers to the local equivalent of the FCC, and they took it down within days.
We sometimes get weird scam-sms, but thats about it.
(We is my family, other people dont really talk about it with others that much)
Does this include google assistant making robocalls or answering my phone on my behalf? I sometimes use it to setup hair cut appointments.
Wait you can use Google Assistant to make calls? I just use it to filter out spam calls without answering.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Federal Communications Commission plans to vote on making the use of AI-generated voices in robocalls illegal.
A recent anti-voting robocall used an artificially generated version of President Joe Biden's voice.
An analysis by the company Pindrop concluded that the artificial Biden voice was created using a text-to-speech engine offered by ElevenLabs.
As the FCC noted yesterday, the TCPA "restricts the making of telemarketing calls and the use of automatic telephone dialing systems and artificial or prerecorded voice messages."
Rosenworcel said her proposed ruling will "recognize this emerging technology as illegal under existing law, giving our partners at State Attorneys General offices across the country new tools they can use to crack down on these scams and protect consumers.
"AI-generated voice cloning and images are already sowing confusion by tricking consumers into thinking scams and frauds are legitimate," Rosenworcel said.
The original article contains 406 words, the summary contains 140 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
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Yes thanks
Good thing Trump has those "crime free zones" in the works.
One of em definitely needs to be around PHONE CALLS.
