TRACED Act passes in U.S. Senate

May 24, 2019

The U.S. Senate voted 97–1 in favor of the TRACED Act on Thursday, May 23, 2019. The Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act instructs the FCC to require voice service providers to implement STIR/SHAKEN not later than 18 months after the enactment of the legislation.

“This won’t eliminate all robocalling, but it’ll certainly put a dent in it—and that’s something I think everyone will welcome,” said Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota Republican who’s a cosponsor of the bill.

“There are no red robocalls; there are no blue robocalls,” said Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, another cosponsor. “There are only robocalls that drive every family in America crazy every single day.”

The proposed law would also strengthen criminal penalties and provide safe harbor for call blocking.

Next step is for the House of Representatives to consider this legislation.

How STIR/SHAKEN works

STIR/SHAKEN is designed to prevent caller ID spoofing, a common robocall tactic. The robocaller tricks the called party into answering the call by using a fake caller ID.

With STIR/SHAKEN, the originating service provider authenticates caller ID and places a signed Identity token into the SIP signaling. The terminating service provider then verifies the token and can use it to present verification status information to the called party.

The technology does not prevent robocalls from being made, but it helps subscribers recognize whether incoming calls might be robocalls. When combined with call analytics such as reputation lookup, STIR/SHAKEN can help subscribers trust caller ID once again and feel more comfortable in using their telephone service.

TransNexus STIR/SHAKEN solutions

We offer STIR/SHAKEN solutions in our ClearIP and NexOSS software products. They include the standard authentication, verification, and certificate management capabilities required to perform STIR/SHAKEN.

These solutions enable granular policies at the group or subscriber level to enable blocking or diversion of calls—a feature that some providers may wish to offer their subscribers.

With these solutions, originating service providers have the option to send Identity tokens either in-band or out-of-band, so they always arrive successfully at the terminating service provider’s verification service.

STIR/SHAKEN can also work with our reputation lookup service to enable terminating service providers to give their subscribers the information they need to avoid spam robocalls.

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