HR0057 101ST GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0057 LRB101 07713 MST 53044 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, Cellular phones have become a vital part of everyday life, and citizens rely on them for ease of communication and accessing information; and

WHEREAS, The abuse of this technology by scam artists and criminals leads to significant disruptions in everyday life and substantial financial losses; and

WHEREAS, The Federal Trade Commission received 4.5 million complaints in 2018 from citizens frustrated with incessant scam callers and robocalls; and

WHEREAS, Scam callers are becoming increasingly sophisticated, using spoofing technology to mimic local area codes in order to fool the call recipient; and

WHEREAS, 30 billion robocalls were made in 2017, a number that is growing from year-to-year; and

WHEREAS, $350 Million dollars are lost every year to scam calls; and

WHEREAS, Having a phone number registered on the national Do Not Call Registry does little to discourage or stop criminal phone scams; and

WHEREAS, New phone verification methods, including the Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) and Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs (SHAKEN), show great promise for helping to stop the increasing flood of scam and robocalls; and

WHEREAS, The federal government and telecom companies are taking steps to stop the overwhelming flood of fraudulent and unsolicited phone calls that consumers receive; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDRED FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we support all efforts by the federal government and the telecommunication industry to stop the abuse of our national telecommunication networks and the defrauding of our citizens by deceitful robocalls and scam callers; and be it further

RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be delivered to the Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and to the respective CEOs of the top five telecommunication companies in Illinois.