ACA International is focused on working with a coalition of associations to ensure regulatory efforts do not limit ways to reach consumers.
7/6/2020 12:30
ACA International has been working with a broad coalition of associations to advocate for changes to the Federal Communications Commission’s draft order concerning call blocking, which will be considered by the commission on July 16, 2020. This action is the latest in a series of actions taken by the FCC to address “robocalls,” and has been a top focus of ACA’s advocacy to ensure that overly broad efforts do not limit legitimate business calls.
On Thursday, July 2, ACA filed a notice of ex parte presentation outlining areas that must be improved before the FCC’s order is finalized. The letter, signed by the American Bankers Association, American Association of Healthcare Administrative Management, American Financial Services Association, Consumer Bankers Association, Credit Union National Association, Mortgage Bankers Association, National Association of Federally Insured Credit Unions and the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, in addition to ACA, serves as notice of ex parte telephone calls with Zenji Nakazawa, public safety and consumer protection advisor to Chairman Ajit Pai on June 30, 2020, and with Arielle Roth, wireline legal advisor to FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, on July 1, 2020.
In its filing, the coalition argued that it is critical that the FCC’s rules governing call-blocking practices protect consumers from the risk that they might not receive important, often time-sensitive, calls from health care providers, finance companies, banks, credit unions, other participants in the financial services marketplace, retailers and other legitimate businesses. It stated, “When outbound calling numbers used by legitimate businesses are mislabeled, or calls from those numbers are blocked, consumers are harmed because they may not receive lawful calls affecting their health, safety, or financial well-being.”
The letter asks the FCC to take the following steps:
- The commission should require a voice service provider to remove an erroneous block within 24 hours of the provider’s learning of the block.
- The commission should clarify and confirm that a terminating service provider that blocks calls is prohibited from imposing a charge on callers for reporting, investigating, resolving, and, as appropriate, removing erroneous blocks promptly.
- The commission should confirm that the obligation on terminating voice service providers to provide callers with effective redress options applies equally to mislabeled outbound calling numbers.
- The commission should confirm that implementing the required redress mechanism is a condition of receiving the protections of the safe harbor.
The letter also argues that “terminating voice service providers should not be able to block a fully authenticated call unless the provider can determine with a high degree of certainty that the call is unlawful through application of objective, defined criteria, and after investigation into the call.”
In its efforts, ACA also highlighted to the FCC that Congress outlined protections for legitimate callers in the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act. In regard to the draft order, the letter states, “These provisions, however, fail to fully effectuate the requirements of the TRACED Act, which mandate that the commission ‘ensure [that] robocall blocking services provided on an opt-out or opt-in basis’ … are provided with transparency and effective redress options for both consumers and callers.’ The TRACED Act further requires that the establishment of a safe harbor for blocking voice service providers must be consistent with this requirement for transparency and effective redress.”
ACA plans to continue advocating on this issue over the next several weeks and will keep members apprised of how the final order may impact the ability to make calls.
To read the full letter, click here.