The FCC is asking telecom companies to prove they’re actually working to stop political robocalls created by AI.FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel this week sent letters to nine major telecom companies asking what steps they’re taking to prevent fraudulent robocalls, specifically those that use artificial intelligence for political purposes.The move comes after Democratic voters in New Hampshire received robocalls that faked the voice of President Biden and urged them not to vote in the presidential primary earlier this year. After the incident, the FCC voted unanimously to declare that robocalls that use AI voice cloning technology are illegal under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.Forty-nine state attorneys general also agreed to work with the FCC on junk robocalls. “This is just the beginning. We know that AI technologies will make it cheap and easy to flood our networks with deepfakes used to mislead and betray trust,” wrote Rosenworcel. “It is especially chilling to see AI voice cloning used to impersonate candidates during elections. As AI tools become more accessible to bad actors and scammers, we need to do everything we can to keep this junk off our networks.”Rosenworcel sent letters to the CEOs of AT&T, Charter, Comcast, Cox Communications, Dish/EchoStar, Frontier Communications, Lumen Technologies, T-Mobile, and Verizon. She acknowledges the “cooperation from this group,” but to “further assist us at the FCC to keep illegal robocalls, and especially those using AI-generated voices, off of our networks,” she is asking them to provide details on their “efforts to stop these calls from reaching consumers.”Specifically, she wants to know how they’re authenticating calls to prevent spoofed caller IDs and how they verify their customers’ identity. She also wants to know if they have dedicated teams that handle FCC requests for information about suspected illegal robocall campaigns and whether they have the technology to identify generative AI voices.
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Rosenworcel also wants to know how involved they are in the Industry Traceback Group, and what steps they’ve taken “to address the threat of unauthorized AI-generated messaging campaigns during elections.”The FCC chair has requested responses from the carriers by July 15.Last month, Rosenworcel also proposed creating AI content disclosure rules for political ads.
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