FCC says carriers should better protect phone users, plans new regulation

Posted:
in General Discussion
The FCC is planning to introduce a new requirement for phone carriers to combat scams involving SIM-swapping and porting users' accounts to criminals.

FCC
FCC


The Federal Communications Commission has begun what it describes as a "formal rulemaking process," which aims to help phone users. It's specifically intended to make SIM-swapping, where a legitimate user's service is fraudulently switched to someone else.

And it's also intended to counter the similar port-out scam, where one carrier is used to port a user's number from another carrier.

"The FCC has received numerous complaints from consumers who have suffered significant distress, inconvenience, and financial harm as a result of SIM swapping and port-out fraud," says the commission in a statement. "In addition, recent data breaches have exposed customer information that could potentially make it easier to pull off these kinds of attacks."

This Notice of Proposed Rulemaking says that the FCC plans to amend the Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) and Local Number Portability rules. Carriers will ultimately be required to adopt more secure authentication methods, and also to notify customers of SIM or port changes.

There is no timetable for when the FCC hopes to implement the new rules. The notice does, though, say that the Commission "seeks input" on the issues.

Read on AppleInsider

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,290member
    This would be a first if the FCC actually protected any consumer. 
    Dogperson
  • Reply 2 of 6
    j2fusionj2fusion Posts: 153member
    How about fining the carriers $1 for every faked caller ID it lets through. I’d rather see no number available than a fake one. 
    caladanianwilliamlondonroundaboutnowDogpersonMplsP
  • Reply 3 of 6
    flydogflydog Posts: 1,139member
    rob53 said:
    This would be a first if the FCC actually protected any consumer. 
    You must be high. 
  • Reply 4 of 6
    flydogflydog Posts: 1,139member
    j2fusion said:
    How about fining the carriers $1 for every faked caller ID it lets through. I’d rather see no number available than a fake one. 
    Why would that merit a fine?  There’s nothing illegal about that, and there never will be. When Apple customer support returns your call, that number is the inbound number, not the actual number of the person who is calling you. 
    williamlondon
  • Reply 5 of 6
    flydog said:
    j2fusion said:
    How about fining the carriers $1 for every faked caller ID it lets through. I’d rather see no number available than a fake one. 
    When Apple customer support returns your call, that number is the inbound number, not the actual number of the person who is calling you. 
    Yeah, because that's the same thing.
    roundaboutnow
  • Reply 6 of 6
    MplsPMplsP Posts: 4,002member
    j2fusion said:
    How about fining the carriers $1 for every faked caller ID it lets through. I’d rather see no number available than a fake one. 
    The problem is the telephone network needs to be redesigned to have more security. Until that happens the carriers can only try to limit the onslaught. It’s much like email that way. 
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