Telecom Behind AI Biden Robocall Settles With FCC For $1 Million (cyberscoop.com) 20
New submitter ElimGarak000 shares a report from CyberScoop: The Texas-based voice service provider that sent AI-generated robocalls of President Joe Biden to New Hampshire voters ahead of its Democratic presidential primary has agreed to pay a $1 million fine and implement enhanced verification protocols designed to prevent robocalls and phone number spoofing in a settlement with the Federal Communications Commission. The fine represents half the amount the FCC was originally seeking in an enforcement action proposed against Lingo Telecom in May. Despite that, agency leaders characterized the settlement (PDF) as a successful effort to defend U.S. telecommunications networks and election infrastructure from nascent AI and deepfake technologies. [...]
In addition to the fine, the settlement requires Lingo Telecom to follow regulatory protocols that were put in place in 2020 to ensure telecommunications carriers authenticate caller identities using their networks. The protocols, known as STIR/SHAKEN, require carriers like Lingo to digitally verify and formally attest to the FCC that callers are legitimate and own the phone number they display on Caller ID. In the New Hampshire robocall case, Kramer and Life Corporation spoofed the phone number of Kathy Sullivan, a former state Democratic party official who was running a write-in campaign for Biden.
The FCC cited Lingo's inability to properly implement and enforce STIR/SHAKEN as a key failure in a February cease-and-desist letter, and again in May when the agency proposed a $2 million enforcement action. The company was also named in a civil lawsuit filed by the League of Women Voters and New Hampshire residents, seeking damages over the incident. Per terms of the settlement, Lingo Telecom must hire a senior manager knowledgeable in STIR/SHAKEN protocols and develop a compliance plan, new operating procedures and training programs. They must also report any incidents of non-compliance with STIR/SHAKEN within 15 days of discovery. "Every one of us deserves to know that the voice on the line is exactly who they claim to be," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. "If AI is being used, that should be made clear to any consumer, citizen, and voter who encounters it. The FCC will act when trust in our communications networks is on the line."
In addition to the fine, the settlement requires Lingo Telecom to follow regulatory protocols that were put in place in 2020 to ensure telecommunications carriers authenticate caller identities using their networks. The protocols, known as STIR/SHAKEN, require carriers like Lingo to digitally verify and formally attest to the FCC that callers are legitimate and own the phone number they display on Caller ID. In the New Hampshire robocall case, Kramer and Life Corporation spoofed the phone number of Kathy Sullivan, a former state Democratic party official who was running a write-in campaign for Biden.
The FCC cited Lingo's inability to properly implement and enforce STIR/SHAKEN as a key failure in a February cease-and-desist letter, and again in May when the agency proposed a $2 million enforcement action. The company was also named in a civil lawsuit filed by the League of Women Voters and New Hampshire residents, seeking damages over the incident. Per terms of the settlement, Lingo Telecom must hire a senior manager knowledgeable in STIR/SHAKEN protocols and develop a compliance plan, new operating procedures and training programs. They must also report any incidents of non-compliance with STIR/SHAKEN within 15 days of discovery. "Every one of us deserves to know that the voice on the line is exactly who they claim to be," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. "If AI is being used, that should be made clear to any consumer, citizen, and voter who encounters it. The FCC will act when trust in our communications networks is on the line."
Excuse me (Score:5, Insightful)
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https://docs.fcc.gov/public/at... [fcc.gov]
For Immediate Release
FCC PROPOSES $6 MILLION FINE FOR ILLEGAL ROBOCALLS THAT
USED BIDEN DEEPFAKE GENERATIVE AI VOICE MESSAGE
Steve Kramer Instigated Illegal Robocall and Spoofing Campaign Telling Voters Not to
Vote in 2024 New Hampshire Primary
--
WASHINGTON, May 23, 2024—The Federal Communications Commission today proposed a
substantial fine for apparently illegal robocalls made using deepfake, AI-generated voice cloning
technology and caller ID spoofing to spread election misinformation to potential New Hampshire
voters prior to the January primary. Steve Kramer faces a $6 million proposed fine for apparent
spoofing violations.
Two days before the New Hampshire 2024 presidential primary election, illegally spoofed and
malicious robocalls carried a deepfake audio recording of President Biden’s cloned voice telling
prospective voters not to vote in the upcoming primary. Political consultant Steve Kramer was
responsible for the calls and now faces a $6 million proposed fine for perpetrating this illegal
robocall campaign on January 21, 2024. The calls apparently violated the Truth in Caller ID Act
by maliciously spoofing the number of a prominent local political consultant. The robocalls,
made two days prior to the election, used a deepfake of President Biden’s voice and encouraged
voters to not vote in the primary but rather to “save your vote for the November election.”
Commission rules prohibit knowingly causing the transmission of inaccurate caller ID
information with the intent to defraud, cause harm or wrongly obtain anything of value. Mr.
Kramer’s conduct apparently runs afoul of this rule.
“We will act swiftly and decisively to ensure that bad actors cannot use U.S. telecommunications
networks to facilitate the misuse of generative AI technology to interfere with elections, defraud
consumers, or compromise sensitive data,” said Loyaan A. Egal, Chief of the Enforcement
Bureau and chair of the Privacy and Data Protection Task Force. “We thank our partners at
the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office for their help with this investigation.”
To transmit the calls, Mr. Kramer had engaged Voice Broadcasting Corp., which used the services
of Life Corp. to transmit calls through voice service provider Lingo Telecom. Lingo Telecom
transmitted these calls, incorrectly labeling them with the highest level of caller ID attestation,
making it less likely that other providers could detect the calls as potentially spoofed. The
Commission brought a separate enforcement action today against Lingo Telecom for apparent
violations of STIR/SHAKEN for failing to utilize reasonable “Know Your Customer” protocols to
verify caller ID information in connection with Mr. Kramer’s illegal robocalls.
In February, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau, in coordination with the office of the New
Hampshire Attorney General, ordered Lingo to cease-and-desist from carrying the suspicious
traffic. The Commission has taken such actions to block active robocall scam campaigns, in
addition to imposing financial penalties like those proposed today. These efforts to stop active
campaigns have had important impacts, including FCC actions that resulted in a 99% drop in auto
warranty scam robocalls, an 88% month-to-month drop in student loan scam robocalls, and the
end to a predatory mortgage robocall campaign targeting homeowners nationwide.
The FCC continues its work in understanding and adjusting to the impacts of AI on robocalling
and robotexting. The Commission has made clear that calls made with AI-generated voices are
“artificial” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), confirming that the FCC and
state Attorneys General have the needed tools to go after bad actors behind these nefarious
robocalls. In addition, the FCC launched a formal proceeding to gather information on the current
state of AI use in calling and texting and ask questions about new threats, like robocalls
mimicking the voices of those we know. The FCC also co-hosted a workshop with the National
Science Foundation that convened stakeholders to discuss AI-related topics including the
challenges AI brings to consumer issues like robocalls/robotexts.
The proposed action, formally called a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture, or NAL,
contains only allegations that advise a party on how they have apparently violated the law and
may set forth a proposed monetary penalty. The Commission may not impose a greater monetary
penalty than the amount proposed in the NAL. Neither the allegations nor the proposed sanctions
in the NAL are final Commission actions. Kramer will be given an opportunity to respond and
the Commission will consider submissions of evidence and legal arguments before acting further
to resolve these matters.
Action by the Commission May 23, 2024 by Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (FCC 24-
59). Chairwoman Rosenworcel, Commissioners Carr, Starks, Simington, and Gomez approving.
Chairwoman Rosenworcel, Commissioners Starks and Gomez issuing separate statements.
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this is how corruption works, the upper classes break the law and then the facade of justice is erected while the lawyers feast on public dollars
big business as usual
Sooo... they made a lot more than 1m (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Sooo... they made a lot more than 1m (Score:2)
Yes, there should be a huge fine. Enough to make it more profitable to check for this kind of ****. But a few hundred text messages is not enough to justify destroying their profits completely, which was mostly earned honestly.
Of course I would expect changes in behaviour that make this much less likely in the future.
Re: Sooo... they made a lot more than 1m (Score:4, Interesting)
None of this is about text messages. They used an AI voice clone of Joe Biden's voice and called voters using a spoofed number.
Lingo provided the highest level attestation that the caller ID information was correct without making any effort to verify the accuracy of the information. Doing that violates the standards set by the FCC for caller ID verification that they are required to follow.
Fuck every telecom that thinks they can just arbitrarily blow off the rules and enable robocall scams to go out with spoofed numbers, making it impossible to block them by number because of the number always changing. Every last one of them deserves to be bankrupted.
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Okay, but I still get daily messages and calls with spoofed numbers and "AI" voice clones from people like Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Joe Rogan, either trying to scam or sell or get a message out. You can find regular Reddit and Twitter posts with fake and AI-generated anti-Trump ads.
The only reason this one got taken on in particular is because it offended the wrong group of people.
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It's election fraud, it should offend everyone, right?
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Is it really? If you get a random ad from Joe Biden and you believe what it says you probably shouldn't vote in the first place.
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The only reason this one got taken on in particular is because it offended the wrong group of people.
And now, after being deluged by all those AI-voiced spoofed numbers, is the time you speak up. Sounds to me like the only reason it bothers you is because it offended the 'wrong people', namely you.
one MILLION dollars..... (Score:2)
sounds like comedy writing.
I agree-should be jail time by actual humans for interfering in elections.
Re: one MILLION dollars..... (Score:2)
I never got the call-therefore, it never happened. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
We're sorry for your inconvenience. Please post your phone number here. We'll make sure you get all of the robocall scam calls going forward.
STIR/SHAKEN generally not working (Score:4, Informative)
I'm in NH and wife is registered Democrat (I'm 'independent'). We did not get that particular robo-call. But we get 4-6 junk calls each day from obviously forged Caller IDs, 2/3 of those are in-state numbers and the other third are out-of-area-code numbers. It's as bad now as it was at the worst point before all those laws and regulations were passed.
I don't know if the technology is ineffective, if the Telcos aren't enforcing it, or if FCC is failing to monitor and take action; probably all-of-the-above.
Justice Delayed (Score:2)
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The calls basically *were* pro-Trump, they were fake messages purporting to be from Biden telling people not to vote in the Democratic primary. It was attempt to sabotage the DNC primary.
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Nothing says Freedom like 100,000 new IRS agents to audit the middle cla, er I mean, the wealthy. Yeah, they are going to audit the wealthy.
The GOP decided not to put up a good candidate, and that's completely undermining the point you're trying to make.