NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday signed two bills into law that will help reduce the number of robocalls that New Yorkers receive.
The first bill will require telecommunication companies to proactively block calls from certain numbers. This would include calls that are the most likely to be illegitimate, as they are coming from numbers that do not or cannot make outgoing calls.
Those numbers are often used in “spoofing” schemes in which the true identity of a caller is masked behind a fake number, according to Hochul’s office.
The second bill would require voice services providers to implement a new type of call authentication system known as STIR/SHAKEN. The system uses cryptography to validate that a call is really coming from the number displayed and is designed to prevent spoofing, the governor said.
The STIR/SHAKEN system also makes it much easier to trace illegal calls back to their source, since each call will have-an identification assigned to it. Hochul’s office noted that once the perpetrators are identified, enforcement actions can be taken.
“New Yorkers are fed up with annoying, predatory robocalls, and we're taking action to stop them,” Hochul said. “This legislation will enable telecom companies to prevent these calls from coming in in the first place, as well as empower our state government to ensure that voice service providers are validating who is making these calls so enforcement action can be taken against bad actors.”
A new rule from the Federal Communications Commission already required telecommunication companies to pro-actively block robocalls, but the state bills will bolster state enforcement.
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