This bill creates a special task force to tackle the growing problem of illegal robocalls coming into the United States from foreign countries. The Federal Communications Commission will set up this task force within nine months, bringing together representatives from various government agencies (like the FTC and Department of Justice), phone companies, technology experts, and consumer advocacy groups to work on solutions together.

The task force's main job is to investigate and report back to Congress on the scope of the problem—specifically, how many illegal robocalls are coming from outside the U.S., which countries are the biggest sources, and how much money Americans are losing to these scams. They'll also examine what technology solutions exist, like caller ID authentication systems that can verify whether calls are legitimate, and figure out how to get foreign countries to adopt these protections. The task force will look at whether current laws and penalties are tough enough, whether law enforcement agencies need more resources or a dedicated office to fight these crimes, and what best practices phone companies should follow to block these calls.

Once the task force completes its investigation and submits a detailed report to Congress (within one year), it will disband. The bill also makes a small change to an existing law, requiring a related consortium to report every three years instead of every year. Essentially, this bill is the government's way of getting serious about stopping foreign scammers from flooding American phones with illegal robocalls by studying the problem thoroughly and developing a coordinated strategy to combat it.

Foreign Robocall Elimination Act

Budd, Ted

Foreign Robocall Elimination ActThis bill establishes an interagency task force on unlawful&nbsp;robocalls to advise federal agencies and Congress on combating robocalls made from outside of the United States.The bill also increases the term applicable to the Federal Communications Commission’s designation of an industry-led consortium to trace the origin of suspected unlawful&nbsp;robocalls. Under current law, the commission must annually seek applications from industry groups to serve as the designated consortium; under the bill, the commission must seek applications once every three years.