Idaho Attorney General, Others Join to Fight Illegal Robocalls

BOISE, Idaho – Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said Thursday that he and 51 other attorneys general, as well as 12 phone companies, have agreed to fight illegal robocalls.

The agreement, which includes adopting eight principles, will help protect phone users from illegal robocalls and make it easier for attorneys general to investigate and prosecute “bad actors,” according to a news release from Wasden’s office.

“Robocalls are a plague on all of us but I’m optimistic that through collaborations like this one, we can begin attacking the problem,” Wasden said in the prepared statement. “This is bigger than just one state, and I’m glad to see attorneys general and phone carriers teaming up to address the issue.”

You can view the eight principles here. Also, according to Wasden, phone companies will work to prevent illegal robocalls by:

• Implementing call-blocking technology at the network level at no cost to customers.
• Making available to customers additional, free, easy-to-use call blocking and labeling tools.
• Implementing technology to authenticate that callers are coming from a valid source.
• Monitoring their networks for robocall traffic.

They also will assist in the anti-robocall enforcement by:

• Knowing who their customers are so bad actors can be identified and investigated.
• Investigating and taking action against suspicious callers – including notifying law enforcement and state attorneys general.
• Working with law enforcement, including state attorneys general, to trace the origins of illegal robocalls.
• Requiring telephone companies with which they contract to cooperate in traceback identification

Wasden said the coalition includes attorneys generals from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and the phone companies AT&T, Bandwidth, CenturyLink, Charter, Comcast, Consolidated, Frontier, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon, and Windstream.