TRACED Act

Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act or the TRACED Act

This bill implements a forfeiture penalty for violations (with or without intent) of the prohibition on certain robocalls. The bill also removes an annual reporting requirement for enforcement relating to unsolicited facsimile advertisements.

The bill requires voice service providers to develop call authentication technologies.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) shall promulgate rules establishing when a provider may block a voice call based on information provided by the call authentication framework, but also must establish a process to permit a calling party adversely affected by the framework to verify the authenticity of their calls. The FCC shall also initiate a rulemaking to help protect a subscriber from receiving unwanted calls or texts from a caller using an unauthenticated number.

This bill requires the Department of Justice and the FCC to assemble an interagency working group to study and report to Congress on the enforcement of the prohibition of certain robocalls. Specifically, the working group will look into how to better enforce against robocalls by examining issues like the types of laws, policies, or constraints that could be inhibiting enforcement.

The bill requires the FCC to initiate a proceeding to determine whether its policies regarding access to number resources could be modified to help reduce access to numbers by potential robocall violators.