FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
INQUIRIES: media@naag.org
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA—July 28, 2026—The Association sent a letter on behalf of a bipartisan coalition of 50 other state and territory attorneys general, pushing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to strengthen its “Know Your Customer” (KYC) rules to help prevent scammers from using the U.S. communications network to make illegal robocalls. KYC rules require phone companies to know who is making calls through their networks and what kinds of business these customers are conducting. With that information, phone companies can suspend or terminate callers who use their networks to make unlawful calls or decline to do business with customers who aren’t legitimate companies or cannot prove that they conduct lawful business.
Illegal robocalls originate from a voice service provider, allowing bad actors to use its network. If scammers can’t get their calls onto the U.S. communications network, they can’t make illegal robocalls. So, these originating voice service providers are key to stopping these calls from reaching people.
Even though providers are already required to know who their customers are, the current requirements aren’t strong enough—as evidenced by the prevalence of robocall scams. Last year, Americans received more than 29.6 billion scam robocalls and texts and lost nearly $2 billion to these scams.
In addition to what the FCC is already doing, attorneys general urge the FCC to:
- Require providers to understand their customers’ business. In addition to verifying a customer’s identity and existence, originating providers should also be required to examine and understand the customer’s business practices, reputation, history, intended use of services, and their compliance with state and federal laws.
- Hold all originating providers to KYC standards. Even small originating service providers should be required to meet enhanced KYC standards. Scammers use originating providers, regardless of size, to access the communications network. In fact, illegal calls are often facilitated by smaller voice service providers. Not holding small providers to the same standards could make them even more attractive to bad actors seeking to use them to place illegal robocalls.
- Require originating providers to collect additional information on high-risk customers. While KYC requirements should be universal, the attorneys general support additional long-term monitoring of customers more likely to make illegal robocalls, such as those subscribing to high-volume services.
This letter follows a bipartisan coalition of 49 attorneys general who sent reply comments to the FCC earlier in July, urging it to crack down on illegal robocalls by strengthening rules that would cut off scammers’ access to legitimate phone numbers.
The two letters are part of Phase 2 of Operation Robocall Roundup, an effort by the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force to crack down on robocalls nationwide. Phase 1 launched in August 2025, with warning letters sent to 37 smaller voice providers that were allowing suspected illegal robocalls to be placed on the U.S. telephone network. Phase 2 launched in December and expanded the crackdown to four of the country’s largest intermediate voice service providers.
The bipartisan coalition is led by the attorneys general of Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and is joined in signing the letter by the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, U.S. Virgin Islands, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
A copy of the letter is available here.
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The National Association of Attorneys General is a nonpartisan organization of the attorneys general of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories. NAAG provides a forum for exchanging knowledge, experiences, and insights on legal and law-enforcement issues and fosters bipartisan collaboration among its members to address common challenges and advance the rule of law. For more information, please visit NAAG’s website.
