Getty Images | Anna Moneymaker
A phone company has agreed to pay a $1 million fine for sending fake robocalls that used a deepfake of President Joe Biden’s voice to urge New Hampshire residents not to vote. Texas-based Lingo Telecom has agreed to a settlement with the Federal Communications Commission, the agency announced today.
Lingo Telecom “will pay a $1 million civil penalty and implement a historic compliance plan – the first of its kind approved by the FCC – that requires strict adherence to the FCC’s STIR/SHAKEN Caller ID authentication rules,” the FCC said. The settlement includes “requirements that the company adhere to the ‘Know Your Customer’ (KYC) and ‘Know Your Upstream Provider’ (KYUP) principles,” which focus on reviewing call traffic to ensure it is trustworthy, and “requirements that the company more thoroughly verify the accuracy of information provided by its customers and upstream providers.”
The calls, ahead of the New Hampshire presidential primary in January, were orchestrated by Steve Kramer, a Democratic consultant who worked for a candidate running against Biden. Kramer was charged with voter suppression and identity fraud, and the FCC sought a $6 million fine for Kramer. The calls falsely listed a phone number associated with a prominent New Hampshire political official.
The FCC had originally proposed a $2 million fine for Lingo Telecom before agreeing to a $1 million fine in a settlement order issued today. The settlement order concludes the FCC’s investigation into Lingo Telecom’s apparent rule violations related to its STIR/SHAKEN caller ID authentication system.
Telco did not verify calls
Lingo Telecom made 3,978 calls to prospective voters in New Hampshire on January 21, 2024, on behalf of a customer named Life Corporation. Lingo Telecom signed these calls with A-level attestations indicating that the telephone company “is responsible for initiating the call into the service provider’s IP-based voice network, has a direct authenticated relationship with the customer and can identify the customer, and has established a verified connection with the telephone number used to make the call.”
Lingo Telecom did not actually check the calls, the settlement decision states:
Lingo Telecom stated that its policy was to assign A-level attestation to a customer’s traffic when the company directly assigns direct inward dialing (DID) numbers to a customer, such as Life Corporation. If one of those customers, such as Life Corporation, also purchased Company Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunks that allow the customer to use numbers assigned by other providers, Lingo Telecom allowed it to “obtain an A-level attestation for traffic connected to … non-Lingo-provided phone numbers if the customer confirmed that it ‘will identify its customer and has a proven connection to the phone number used to make the call.'”
Lingo Telecom told the FCC that it relied on certification from Life Corporation, which has been a Lingo Telecom customer for 16 years. “Lingo Telecom has not taken any steps beyond those noted above to independently determine whether Life Corporation’s customers were lawfully permitted to use the telephone number displayed as the calling number for the New Hampshire presidential primary calls,” the FCC said.
The settlement agreement states that “in future, Lingo Telecom may only apply A-Level confirmation to a call if Lingo Telecom itself has communicated the caller identity to the caller connected to the call.” The “Know Your Customer” provisions of the settlement agreement require Lingo Telecom to obtain more detailed information from customers, while the “Know Your Upstream Provider” provisions require the company to obtain more detailed information from other telecommunications companies for which it transmits calls.
Lingo Telecom is also prohibited from accepting “payments in the form of cryptocurrency, gift cards or cash for forwarding or initiating calls.” The settlement is set to be valid for three years, but can be extended by 12 months for each violation.
