California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed into law an anti-robocall bill called the Consumer Call Protection Act of 2019 that aims to eliminate neighbor spoofing, requires carriers to adopt SHAKEN/STIR protocols, and bolsters the state’s enforcement against alleged robocalls.
Under the law, telecom carriers will be required to deploy SHAKEN/STIR authentication protocols by Jan. 1, 2021, which is six months later than what was called for when the legislation was introduced back in February by state Sen. Ben Hueso.
“Fraud by robocallers is the number one consumer complaint in the country, and the volume of these calls has increased dramatically in recent years,” said Sen. Hueso, Chair of the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, in a statement. “The surge in illegal robocalls disproportionately impacts Californians, who receive the second highest number of robocalls in the nation. The State must take steps to ensure that its consumers can reliably answer their telephones without the fear of fraud.”
SHAKEN (Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs) and STIR (Secure Telephony Identity Revisited), are protocols that verify and authenticate Caller ID for calls placed over an internet protocol network.
Companies need only show a “good faith effort” to try and comply with the law in order to defend against any claims for violating its provisions.
The law also empowers the state’s Public Utilities Commission to work with the Attorney General of California to enforce the law.
Somewhat interestingly, the law specifically states that telecom companies are not required under the law to “employ call blocking.”
