FCC Weighs Efforts to Address Robocalls as Industry Pushes Back
Comments on proposals urge caution based on the current technology landscape
WASHINGTON, April 28, 2026 — The Federal Communications Commission is moving closer to tightening “Know Your Customer” requirements for phone service providers, as regulators look to close gaps that have allowed illegal robocalls to proliferate.
The proposal builds on years of FCC action targeting robocalls, including implementation of the STIR/SHAKEN caller authentication framework, the Robocall Mitigation Database and stepped-up enforcement efforts. While those measures have reduced some forms of caller ID spoofing, they have not fully stopped scam calls, particularly those originating overseas or routed through complex networks of resold numbers.
The regulations in the past year reflect what FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said at a recent USTelecom forum: The FCC’s regulatory push aims to target fraud “at every single portion of the life cycle of a call,” rather than focusing on individual bad actors.
The agency is set to consider further regulations at its meeting on Thursday, April 30, ahead of a May 26 deadline for public comments. The proposal would expand existing rules by seeking input on what information providers must collect from customers before allowing them to originate calls.
The FCC is also asking whether providers should go further by verifying that information through documentation such as government IDs, proof of business registration or confirmation of a physical address.
The effort reflects growing concern within the agency that current safeguards are insufficient to stop bad actors, particularly those exploiting resold phone numbers. According to the FCC’s enforcement arm, a majority of investigations into illegal robocalling have involved such numbers, which can obscure the identity of the caller.
“Cracking down on illegal robocalls will be a top priority at the FCC,” Carr said in a statement, describing the proposal as a way to close enforcement gaps and better protect consumers.
Foreign-originated scams a challenge
Officials have increasingly pointed to foreign-originated scam campaigns as a major challenge.
“We cannot overstate how big an overseas problem this is for us,” Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, said during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing earlier this month.
Federal officials have increasingly pointed to overseas scam operations as a key driver of persistent robocalls, with many campaigns routed through U.S. networks using leased or resold numbers.
The FCC has signaled it is examining additional steps to address those threats, including how international call pathways and call center operations contribute to the problem. Senators Ted Budd, R-N.C. and Peter Welch, D-Vermont, have previously attempted to address this issue, proposing the creation of a task force in a still-unpassed bill, the Foreign Robocall Elimination Act.
But the newer KYC proposal builds on long-standing principles requiring companies to take steps to understand who they are doing business with. Their recent roots trace to financial regulation.
‘Know your customer’ for banking, and now for telecom?
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Congress passed the PATRIOT Act, which significantly strengthened customer identification requirements for financial institutions. Those rules, known as Customer Identification Programs, expanded KYC practices to address terrorism financing, embedding identity verification as a cornerstone of compliance.
Regulators now face a similar challenge in telecommunications, where globalized networks and cheap access to phone numbers have made enforcement more difficult.
Tools such as STIR/SHAKEN have helped verify whether calls are spoofed by authenticating caller ID information. But reports have identified that it has been significantly less effective among smaller carriers and at preventing bad actors from entering the network in the first place. As a result, illegal calls can still reach consumers even when the technology is implemented as intended.
The FCC is now seeking comment on whether stronger identity verification requirements at the point of customer onboarding could complement those technical solutions.
Telecom groups urge caution
Many industry groups are urging caution. In public comments, the Cloud Communications Alliance asked the commission to consider allowing providers to rely on previously completed KYC checks when customers switch services, arguing that duplicative verification would impose unnecessary costs on providers.
“Conducting an appropriately rigorous due diligence process creates certain costs and burdens on both business customers and originating providers,” the group said in its filing.
The National Retail Federation has similarly opposed the call center effort by the FCC, criticizing that it is an unnecessary push for retail customer service operations.
Major providers echoed concerns about overly prescriptive rules within new FCC proposals. T-Mobile said the FCC should avoid mandating specific technologies that could be “inaccurate” given current limitations. The company cautioned that if verification collection and technology is required by the FCC prematurely it would cause consumers to lose trust in providers. It instead urged standards-based solutions that can evolve alongside technology.
Verizon similarly called for stronger collaboration between regulators, law enforcement and providers to target bad actors, rather than imposing new technical mandates.
In a Broadband Breakfast Expert Opinion in October 2025, Peter Ford, executive vice president at IConectiv, a number-portability management company, argued that “as regulators and carriers crack down on illegal robocalls, the fragmented trust environment leaves legitimate cross-border calls… at risk of being blocked or mislabeled as collateral damage.”
Apparent agreement for further action
Within the commission, there appears to be agreement that action is needed, even as the path forward remains under debate by stakeholders.
“Right now, bad actors are exploiting gaps in a phone number system that was designed for a simpler time,” Commissioner Anna Gomez said at the FCC's March meeting.
