Cybersecurity Policy Report, Robocall Mitigation Scorecard Proposed by FCC, (Sep 2, 2026)

By Jeff Williams

The FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau is seeking comment on a proposal to establish a robocall mitigation scorecard that would “empower consumers and encourage providers to continue to combat illegal robocalls by providing the public with an assessment of the effectiveness of voice service providers’ efforts to protect consumers from illegal robocalls.”

The scorecard would provide consumers with a “valuable tool for choosing the provider that best protects customers from these calls—in effect, helping consumers at the very earliest point of the robocalls life cycle—when a consumer picks their provider,” the notice said.

“Combatting the scourge of illegal robocalls remains the FCC’s top consumer protection priority,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a news release. “[T]oday’s announcement reinforces the agency’s dedication to protecting consumers from illegal robocalls and ensuring they have the tools they need to make informed choices.”

The notice stressed that “this is not a rulemaking that will result in new rules or requirements for voice service providers” but that the FCC would “publish the Scorecard and thus empower consumers by providing them with more information about current provider practices in a digestible format.”

The bureau proposed rating all domestic wireless, wireline, and VoIP providers, “and not those who operate solely as wholesale or intermediate providers.” However, the bureau said, “At the same time, we do not believe we need to rate all such providers and instead aim to include those that collectively serve the vast majority of the retail market and seek comment on this approach including on what threshold of the market we should consider.”

Among other things, the bureau also asked for comment on what data sources it should use to inform the scorecard, suggesting that the data sources “best suited for developing scoring metrics” include “Robocall Mitigation Database (RMD) filings, provider-offered consumer tools or services, provider blocking practices, FCC Consumer Complaints Center data, FCC enforcement action data, third-party or industry sources, Industry Traceback Group data, and Federal Trade Commission complaint data.”

The bureau also said it would like input on what metrics it should use for the scorecard and said it planned to distinguish between “conduct-based” metrics such as consumer or network tools to label or block robocalls and responses to traceback requests and “outcome-based” metrics such as consumer to the FCC, the Federal Trade Commission, or other governmental entities and aggregated data on calls blocked and false positives.

The notice also asked for input regarding how the scorecard should be displayed to consumers, as well as accessibility and language access.

Comments are due Sept. 22, with reply comments due Oct. 2.

News: FederalLegislation DataPrivacy