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As NAFCU continues to share with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) its concerns that credit unions' legitimate communications with members are being mislabeled and erroneously blocked under recent efforts to combat illegal robocalls, NAFCU's Elizabeth LaBerge urged the FCC to "ensure complete transparency of call labeling to calling parties, effective redress mechanisms for incorrectly labeled calls and the accurate labeling of a caller's identity."

LaBerge, NAFCU's senior regulatory counsel, sent a letter to the FCC Thursday detailing concerns with STIR/SHAKEN – a caller identification framework meant to target illegal robocalls – and the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act. The FCC in April issued a report and order to require voice service providers to implement STIR/SHAKEN by June 30, 2021, and many have already begun to implement the framework.

Regarding STIR/SHAKEN, NAFCU has long flagged service providers' aggressive call blocking and has recommended that the FCC direct service providers not to block unsigned calls until the framework has been fully implemented. In Thursday's letter, LaBerge reiterated this concern as "incorrectly labeling calls may result in long-term difficulties in engaging in lawful and necessary communications with consumers."

She noted that service providers use their own analytics to apply their own labels, which creates variation in the system and potentially confuses callers and reduces the functionality of labels. She called on the FCC to create some standardization of labeling to ensure credit unions can contact their members.

"Consumers who see these labels are likely to not answer the call and to block the number themselves," she added. "Even with an appropriate mechanism for redress regarding erroneous blocking or inaccurate call labeling by a Service Provider, it is far more difficult to resolve a consumer’s own block request based on mislabeling. Once the misinformation has been communicated to consumers, the consequences cannot be easily unwound."

On the TRACED Act, LaBerge highlighted that the law "calls for transparency and effective, no-cost redress options for callers with regard to robocall blocking services."

"Currently, legitimate callers only discover that a Service Provider is blocking or mislabeling their calls through the observation of a statistical increase in receiving busy signals or conversations with confused consumers," LaBerge said. "Without notice that their calls have been blocked or are being inaccurately labeled, legitimate callers have no reasonable redress. Inaccurate call blocking or labeling is a critical piece of feedback for Service Providers. That feedback is necessary to ensure that a Service Provider’s deployment of the framework and algorithms are accurately authenticating and identifying callers."

She asked that the FCC:

• require service providers to be transparent in their call blocking and labeling efforts;
• share information with service providers about mislabeled numbers; and
• require service providers to track and report how many lawful calls they are mistakenly blocking and mislabeling.

NAFCU has actively worked with the FCC on efforts to modernize the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) for more years, and will continue its advocacy to ensure credit unions can contact their members regarding important, time-sensitive information, without fear of frivolous litigation. The association reiterated these concerns to commissioners' staff in several meetings in March.

The association has also filed a petition and written the FCC encouraging it to expedite efforts to ensure financial institutions can contact consumers on matters related to the coronavirus pandemic during the national emergency. The CFPB backed the association's request in a letter to the FCC last month.