FCC: “Truth in Caller ID Act”

Those of you who are members of ISPLA and/or NCISS should have recently seen a posting about the newest Federal Communications Commission ruling on the "Truth in Caller ID Act”.  The FCC summarized the rule: "We adopt rules that prohibit any person or entity in the United States, acting with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value, from knowingly causing, directly or indirectly, any caller identification service to transmit or display misleading caller identification information.”  More succinctly, one cannot use caller identification altering systems for fraudulent or deceptive purposes.  The key component to the rule deals with the intent of the person using the caller ID.  This is yet another one of those rules that may or not be problematic to our profession.  As is often the case, the terms are not clearly defined, leaving interpretation to law enforcement and prosecutors.

I don’t know how many of us use caller ID "spoofing”, but now the FCC has provided some restrictions for the use of this technology that we should be aware of.  As long as we are using this technology in the normal course of our business these new rules should not adversely affect us.