The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced Tuesday that it has opened a new portal which private companies can use to report suspected robocalls and illegal call spoofing of their numbers. The portal, titled the Private Entity Robocall and Spoofing Portal, is designed to provide companies with a tool to combat spam callers using a legitimate business’s phone number as their caller ID.
The FCC published a final rule last month approving the implementation of the new portal. The rule provides that the portal is not intended for use by individual consumers or governmental organizations, which have separate mechanisms for submitting robocall or spoofing complaints.
Complaints submitted via the portal will be transferred to the existing informal complaint process, and the FCC may reach out to entities for additional information where needed. Entities submitting complaints through the portal are asked to provide detailed information to assist with the review, if they have it, including the entity’s name, caller ID information, the phone number called, date and time of the call, service provider, and a description of the call content.
While use of the portal is not mandatory at this time, submitting complaints through the portal may be useful to show good faith efforts to comply with the TCPA, especially for entities that are subject to the TRACED Act’s STIR/SHAKEN robocall mitigation requirements. The portal is just the latest step in federal and state efforts to crack down on illegal robocallers.