Is this call blocking all over again? Industry trade groups support FCC’s overall goal to mitigate unlawful text messages if legitimate business communications are not caught in the shuffle.
11/17/2022 1:20 P.M.
4.5 minute read
Industry trade groups, including ACA International, urge the Federal Communications Commission to ensure legitimate businesses’ text messages are not blocked through new rules the commission is developing.
The FCC’s notice of proposed rulemaking to block unlawful text messages was adopted in September with the goal to stop scam and spam text messages with network-level blocking and sender ID authentication.
The FCC proposes to require mobile wireless providers to block texts, at the network level, that purport to be from invalid, unallocated, or unused numbers, and numbers on a “do-not-originate” list, according to the notice of proposed rulemaking, ACA previously reported.
The FCC also sought comment on the extent spoofing is a problem regarding text messaging and whether there are measures the commission can take to encourage providers to identify and block texts that appear to come from spoofed numbers. In addition, the FCC sought comment on applying caller ID authentication standards to text messaging.
The commission would also require the blocking of texts sent from numbers on a Do-Not-Originate (DNO) list.
Members of ACA and joint industry trade groups, including the Credit Union National Association, American Bankers Association, National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions, American Financial Services Association, Mortgage Bankers Association, National Council of Higher Education Resources, and the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, “report that bad actors illegally ‘spoof’ phone numbers belonging to legitimate businesses when sending text messages—i.e., the bad actor sends a text message from a number that appears to belong to the legitimate business or sends a text message from the bad actor’s own number, making it appear that it is from a legitimate business, with the intent to defraud the recipient,” in comments (PDF) filed with FCC on the proposed rule.
The groups support the commission’s proposal to require mobile wireless providers to block text messages that are from invalid, unallocated, or unused numbers or those on a DNO list because those messages are highly likely to be illegal.
However, much like call blocking rules, “it is critical that the commission’s rules do not impede the completion of text messages sent by legitimate businesses to their customers and other consumers,” the groups say in the comments.
Text messages requiring an immediate response from consumers who agree to the messages could be blocked under this proposed rule.
For example:
- Financial institutions may send text messages when the customer is at the point-of-sale, but transaction monitoring analytics suggest that it may be a suspicious transaction, and the institution seeks to confirm that the customer—and not a bad actor—is making the transaction. If the customer does not receive the text message, he or she cannot complete the sale. Alternatively, if the bad actor is the one making the transaction, the customer cannot take steps to stop the fraud if the customer does not receive the institution’s text message.
- Financial institutions are also expected by their regulators to employ multi-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized individuals from accessing a customer’s account. To comply with this expectation, institutions often send a text message to customers when they attempt to access their account to verify the customer’s identity. Without access to the account, customers cannot determine the amount of funds available in their account or make other financial transactions.
Overall, the groups appreciate that the commission seeks to minimize the erroneous blocking of lawful text messages through this rule but ask in the comments for the FCC to exclude short code text messages that businesses use to send and receive text messages.
Short code messages are registered through CTIA, the trade association for the mobile wireless companies, and therefore are highly unlikely to be spoofed and should be protected from blocking by the FCC’s rules.
In the groups’ comments, the FCC is also urged not to expand its text-blocking mandate unless it identifies a class of text messages that have clear indications of being illegal and to require providers to notify senders when their text messages are blocked and resolve disputes immediately, no longer than six hours after a dispute is received.
ACA’s Take
Texting has become a vital communications tool for businesses. As the FCC outlined in the proposal, this draft rule would require wireless carriers to block texts from invalid, unassigned or unallocated numbers or numbers on “do-not-originate” lists, ACA previously reported.
Blocking for robocalls started here, but it was discretionary, not mandatory. From there, the FCC moved on to blocking based on reasonable analytics, and then implementation of the STIR/SHAKEN regime for carriers. The notice also asks about redress, although it suggests redress may not be necessary for blocks based on these factors since the calls are “highly likely to be illegal.”
The proposal does not suggest blocking based on reasonable analytics.
ACA will fight diligently for its members to be able to fully use text messaging. Even some consumer groups and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau made it clear during the Regulation F rulemaking process that people in collections should be able to use these tools as long as the sender has the right protocols in place, such as a proper opt-out option. If these rules could stop texting from bad actors and increase the trust of using texting by legitimate business, that would be a good thing.
Comments to the FCC on Targeting and Eliminating Unlawful Text Messages (PDF)
If you have executive leadership updates or other member news to share with ACA, contact our communications department at [email protected]. View our publications page for more information and our news submission guidelines here.