WASHINGTON–CUNA has sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission expressing its “significant concerns” as the agency prepares to vote on a draft declaratory ruling that would give phone service providers the authority to block legal automatic calls, often called robo-calls.
CUNA said credit unions regularly need to communicate with members across a number of media, noting CUs often send critical alerts on governance, financial education, and legally-required informational calls.
“In its current state, the Commission’s proposed blocking-by-default framework will inevitably lead to the blocking and mislabeling of multiple legally permissible automated calls—depriving credit union members of important, desired, and, sometimes, legally required communications from their financial institution,” CUNA Senior Director of Advocacy and Counsel Mitria Wilson wrote in the CUNA comment letter. “The draft Declaratory Ruling proposes no mechanism for either consumers or legitimate callers to learn that calls have been blocked and fails to establish any process for callers to quickly and efficiently unblock legitimate calls.”
CUNA argued that the term “robocall” has become overly broad and under the TCPA the definition of prohibited automated calls excludes both calls made to a landline from a caller with an existing business relationship for informational purposes and calls made to a cell phone with prior consent.
‘Overly Broad and Inconsistent’
While it said efforts to minimize scam, fraud and unwanted telemarketing calls is important, it said it also believes the current effort to use opt-out call-blocking to eliminate all “unwanted” automated calls, without regard to their legality or illegality, is overly broad and inconsistent with the TCPA.
CUNA has provided in its letter recommended language to include in the declaratory ruling that would require voice providers to implement a challenge mechanism before they begin offering blocking tools on an opt-out basis.
Another concern, said CUNA, is that call blocking conflicts with the legal obligations imposed on financial institutions by other federal agencies.
CUNA had earlier asked both the CFPB and NCUA to press the FCC to delay its proposed rulemaking.