The FCC submitted their fourth annual report on robocalls to Congress on December 27. The timing is unfortunate because the work being done to stop the criminal use of phone networks needs more public scrutiny, and a report issued between Christmas and New Years’ is unlikely to get much attention from journalists. We will review the contents in more detail but the first and most important takeaway is given on page 7 of the report:
During calendar year 2022 and the period of January 1, 2023 to November 30, 2023, the DOJ [Department of Justice] did not collect any forfeiture penalties or criminal fines for violations of section 227 in cases that the Commission has referred. We lack additional knowledge about DOJ’s collections beyond these cases.
In other words, the FCC is formally issuing penalties for violations of the TRACED Act by robocallers, but none of the penalties they issued up to November of last year had been collected by the Department of Justice, the only branch of government authorized to do so.
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