Schumer made an announcement about the proposed bill while speaking from his New York City office yesterday. The bill is known as the Repeated Objectionable Bothering of Consumers on Phones Act or the ROBOCOP Act. Bills have been drafted by Schumer and Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat. Speier plans to introduce a similar bill in the House of Representatives.
The bill would require all landline and cellular phone companies to provide the technology to customers free of charge.
According to Schumer, New York City residents in two area codes received about 50 million robocalls during the month of April alone. The senator noted the frustration people have when they are interrupted in their daily activities by unwanted calls.
Besides simply being annoying, scammers use robocalls. The Consumers Union reports people lose over $350 million a year in scams that begin by a robocall.
Nomorobo, a Long Island company, has already developed the technology and it is currently offered by Time Warner Cable but the service is only provided to cellphone customers. Robocalls are filtered out in much the same way as spam emails are and the bill would force all phone companies to offer the service to all phone customers. Aaron Voss, founder of Nomorobo, estimates 35 percent of all calls made in the United States are robocalls.
The “Do Not Call” registry has been in existence since 2003. Despite providing fines for companies that call people who have signed up on the registry, it is not working well. It is estimated there will be five million complaints made this year by people receiving calls while on the “Do Not Call” list, compared to the 3.57 million made during 2015. Robocallers have the ability to get around the “Do Not Call” rules, mainly by using phony caller IDs. The blocking technology has the ability to recognize these false IDs and put them into the equivalent of a spam folder.
As well as blocking spammers, the proposed legislation will also stop politicians from using robocalls.
