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The Federal Communications Commission has proposed to toughen identity rules for phone providers in an effort to stop illegal calls before they ever reach consumers. Virtually everyone is annoyed by robocalls, so that sounds like a win, at least on its face.
However, while the rules could make scammers easier to trace, they could also create difficulties for people who use separate numbers for legitimate privacy or safety reasons.
On April 30, the FCC adopted a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which would strengthen its existing Know Your Customer (KYC) rules for originating voice service providers, in other words, the companies that connect callers to the phone network.
These companies include traditional carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, as well as VoIP and cloud-calling providers such as Twilio, Bandwidth, Vonage, and RingCentral. The agency says it’s turning to those providers because, by rooting out illegal calls earlier in the process, there’s a lower chance that they ever make it to the end user’s phone.
The proposal isn’t final and still has to go through a public comment process, which will begin once the Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is published in the Federal Register. The FCC will take public comments in two phases via its Electronic Comment Filing System. Initial comments will be due 30 days after publication, and reply comments responding to those filings will be due 60 days after publication.
The agency is seeking feedback on how far its proposed identity checks should go, including whether phone providers should collect and keep more identifying information before allowing customers to use voice services.
That information could include a customer’s name, physical address, government-issued identification number, and alternate phone number. If the provider is dealing with a high-volume customer, the agency is considering whether it should collect information on how the service will be used and the IP address associated with outgoing calls.
While the FCC says new rules are needed to stop the $850 million in annual fraud caused by illegal calls, the proposal has raised a bigger question: how much privacy should ordinary phone users have to give up to make scammers easier to catch?
Robocalls Are Still a Massive Problem
The FCC’s proposal comes after years of anti-robocall efforts, including the STIR/SHAKEN framework, the Robocall Mitigation Database, and the TRACED Act.
The numbers speak for themselves. In 2025, consumers in the United States received 52.5 billion robocalls, according to YouMail’s Robocall Index. That number was down only 1% from 2024, when consumers received 52.8 billion. In December 2025 alone, Americans received just under 4.1 billion robocalls, or an average of 140.6 million per day.
What’s most concerning is that scam and telemarketing calls are taking up a bigger part of that total, going from 49% in 2024 to 57% in 2025, an increase of 15.4%.
Looking at those numbers, it’s clear the FCC has a strong consumer-protection argument for new rules. It would be one thing if robocalls were just annoying interruptions during dinner, but they’re not.
Much of that robocall activity involves fraud, spoofed numbers, and phone networks that bad actors have been able to exploit faster than regulators or providers can keep up with.
The FCC Wants Providers to Know More About Their Customers
Existing FCC rules already require originating providers to know their customers and take steps to prevent illegal call traffic from starting on their networks. However, according to the agency, the rules that are currently in place are too vague and unevenly applied.
The new rules are supposed to help close that gap because they’re much more specific. Instead of giving companies broad instructions to perform due diligence, the FCC is considering whether it should spell out exactly what customer information must be collected, how providers should verify that information, and when customer details should be rechecked.
The agency draws parallels to the banking world when explaining its proposal, saying financial institutions already use KYC rules designed to make it harder for criminals to hide behind fake or incomplete identities. The FCC’s question is whether a similar model should apply to companies that connect callers to a phone network.
Taken at face value, the logic is easy to understand for robocall enforcement. If a provider can identify who’s behind an account before they even place a call, scammers might have a harder time cycling through disposable identities. When illegal calls slip through the cracks, investigators would have an easier trail to follow.
The Privacy Debate Starts With Prepaid Phones
While just about everyone would appreciate getting fewer robocalls, the problem with the FCC’s proposed verification requirements is the data collection would apply to everyone.
Privacy advocates can take some comfort in knowing that the agency at least seems to recognize those tensions. In its notice, it specifically asks about the risks of collecting more personally identifiable information and the safeguards that might reduce them.
The proposal probably won’t set off many alarm bells for users of traditional postpaid or monthly plans. Carriers already collect identifying and billing information when such customers open accounts.
The privacy concerns creep in when it comes to prepaid phones and the secondary or temporary phone numbers that come with them. Under the new rules, it could become harder to obtain access to a temporary or secondary phone number that isn’t tied to the owner’s legal identity.
The FCC has asked whether the rules should treat prepaid and postpaid plans differently, including SIM cards sold through third-party retailers. It’s also considering whether providers should keep KYC records on file for 4 years after a customer relationship ends, potentially leaving sensitive identity records in these systems long after someone stops using a number.
Prepaid “burner” phones are often associated with scams and other types of criminal activity. However, there are also perfectly legitimate reasons for someone to want to make anonymous calls.
Reclaim the Net, an independent publication covering digital privacy and free speech, points out that prepaid phones can help journalists, whistleblowers, domestic violence survivors, activists, and even ordinary citizens keep one part of their lives from being directly linked to their identities.
As it stands, the FCC’s proposed fix could create a big privacy problem. The agency is asking for the public’s input so the final rule could end up looking much different from what’s being discussed now. But the tradeoff is clear. Fighting robocalls may require phone providers to know more about who’s using their networks. The question is whether it’s worth giving up more privacy to make that happen.
