US subcommittee approves bill against foreign robocalls
The Communications and Technology Subcommittee of the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce has approved the bipartisan Foreign Robocall Elimination Act. It provides for the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to establish an interagency task force to counter illegal automated calls originating from abroad.
As the South China Morning Post reports, the task force is to study the scale of illegal robocalls originating in the United States and beyond its borders. It must also identify foreign countries from which the largest number of such calls to the United States originate.
Task force responsibilities
The bill provides for an assessment of financial losses and cases of personal data theft associated with calls of foreign origin. The task force must also examine how countries can cooperate to authenticate international calls and possible incentives for foreign governments to engage with US law enforcement agencies.
Tracking fraudulent robocalls is difficult because perpetrators regularly spoof caller ID information and route automated traffic through telecommunications system networks in different countries. The document would allow the FCC to require certain voice service providers to post a bond before their certification in the FCC's robocall mitigation database.
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In addition, the bill proposes granting legal immunity to an industry association that conducts investigations to trace call routes. This is intended to protect it from lawsuits over sharing or publishing collected information about allegedly illegal calls. A similar bill has already been approved by the US Senate.
Scam centers in Southeast Asia
The text of the initiative does not mention China or specific countries in Southeast Asia. At the same time, according to US officials and international investigators, major scam centers are concentrated, in particular, in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos, while many operations are linked to Chinese transnational criminal groups.
In a March report, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said that, according to a US government estimate, Americans lost at least $10 billion to scams linked to Southeast Asia in 2024. The commission described Chinese criminal organizations as the main force behind the region's large-scale scam centers.
Separately, the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade advanced bipartisan bill H.R. 5967. It instructs the US Federal Trade Commission, together with the Department of Justice, to create an interagency task force to develop a national strategy to combat fraud.
