The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is seeking public input on identifying FCC rules for the purpose of alleviating unnecessary regulatory burdens. In a public notice released March 12, 2025, the FCC announced the Commission is seeking comments on deregulatory initiatives to identify and eliminate those that are unnecessary in light of current circumstances. The FCC notice stated: “in addition to imposing unnecessary burdens, unnecessary rules may stand in the way of deployment, expansion, competition, and technological innovation.” Reply comments are due by April 28, 2025.
In the meantime, two FCC Orders that both impact the debt collection industry come into effect:
- A 2024 Order released last February impacting revocation of consent to receive autodialed calls and texts and prerecorded or artificial voice calls. The 2024 Order conflicts with the CFPB’s Regulation F Debt Collection Rule about the scope of an opt-out.
- And a 2025 Order released this past February aiming to strengthen call blocking of illegal calls. The 2025 Order may result in the blocking of lawful debt collection calls and texts.
Quick Note: These FCC rules are about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which applies only to calls and texts made by an automated telephone dialing system (ATDS) and prerecorded or automated voice calls (aka robocalls or robotexts).1 If you do not use an ATDS to make calls or texts, and you don’t use prerecorded or automated voice calls, these Orders do not apply to your communications.
I. 2024 Order – Special Revocation Rules
On February 15, 2024, the FCC published an order adopting rules which impact text messaging and outbound dialing using an ATDS as well as calls made with prerecorded or automated voice. Most provisions of the Order take effect April 11, 2025.2 Those provisions include:
- Consumers can revoke consent by “any reasonable manner”
- If consent is revoked it applies to both “robo texts” and “robo calls”
- Companies must process do-not-call and consent revocations requests within a reasonable period of time not to exceed 10 business days of receipt
a. Revoking consent is super flexible.
The FCC Order establishes that consumers may revoke prior express consent for autodialed or prerecorded/artificial voice calls and texts in any reasonable manner. This means that companies cannot designate an exclusive means to revoke consent that precludes the use of any other reasonable method.
A non-exhaustive list of “reasonable” ways a consumer can revoke consent include:
- Request made using an automated, interactive voice, or key press-activated opt-out mechanism on a robocall
- A response of “stop,” “quit,” “end,” “revoke,” “opt out,” “cancel,” or “unsubscribe,” or a similar, standard response message sent in reply to an incoming text message
- Request submitted at a website or telephone number provided to process opt-out requests
If a consumer uses any reasonable method to revoke consent, the FCC considers that consent to be definitively revoked, and future robocalls and texts from that company must be stopped. If there is ever a dispute about whether a consumer reasonably revoked consent, the sender has the burden to show why they did not treat the consumer’s communication as a revocation.
b. Revocation applies to the number, not the channel.
The Order states that when consent for autodialed calls or texts is revoked, that revocation extends to both robocalls and robotexts regardless of the channel used to communicate the revocation. It is the FCC’s position that a consumer grants consent to be contacted at a particular wireless phone number or residential line, and therefore, consent revocation is an instruction to no longer contact the consumer at that number.
This FCC interpretation is different from the CFPB’s approach in Regulation F, which prevents debt collectors from contacting a consumer in a channel after the consumer opts out of communications in that channel. Under Regulation F, if a consumer opts-out from texts it does not require opting the consumer out of calls to that number. This FCC Order has a broader effect—if a consumer revokes consent to text by text, it requires opting the consumer out of all communications to that phone number (calls and texts).
c. Ten business days to process revocation.
The FCC now requires that companies honor opt-out/revocation requests within a reasonable period of time, not to exceed 10 business days of receipt. The FCC chose 10 business days since it was consistent with the timeframe to process revocation requests under the CAN-SPAM rules. However, the FCC made clear that it will continue to monitor advances in technology to see if faster processing times may be warranted in the future, and it explicitly stated “[w]e encourage callers to honor such requests as soon as practicable as a best practice.”
This particular provision is also at odds with the FDCPA, as the FDCPA does not contain language offering a reasonable processing time for opt-outs or any inbound requests (like cease and desist, notice of attorney representation, etc.) The CFPB did not provide any reasonable processing time for opt-outs in Regulation F.
II. 2025 Order – Enhanced Call Blocking Rules
On February 27, 2025, the FCC published an order seeking to strengthen the call blocking and robocall mitigation rules requiring all providers in the chain to block calls that are highly likely to be illegal based on a reasonable Do Not Originate (DNO) list. In the past, lawful debt collection calls have unfairly been blocked in these efforts. This Order has different effective dates but the earliest is May 2025.
a. Every provider must block illegal calls.
The FCC Order requires all providers in the call path to block calls that are “highly likely to be illegal” based on a reasonable DNO list. With this Order the FCC expands the requirement from prior Orders, now requiring all providers to block suspected illegal calls.
FCC does not mandate a particular list for providers to use. This is because providers know their own networks and may be better positioned to determine what types of numbers should be prioritized. As long as the provider can show that the list is reasonable, the provider will be in compliance with the Order. Providers must constantly update the lists and will want to show that their list is comprehensive to safeguard consumers.
This provision of the Order goes into effect 90 days after the order is published in the Federal Register. This order has not been published in the Federal Register as of the date of this blog post, but we should prepare for this rule to go into effect as early May 2025.
b. Special code for immediate notification of blocking to a caller.
The FCC has designed SIP Code 603+3 as the return call the provider must immediately use to notify callers when their calls are blocked based on “reasonable analytics.” This is the exclusive code for this purpose on IP networks. Using this code will ensure that callers learn when and why their calls are blocked based on reasonable analytics, which will allow these callers to access redress when blocking errors occur. This stems directly from the TRACED Act that requires the Commission to ensure that callers receive “transparency and effective redress” when their calls are blocked by analytics, and a single uniform code is the best way to achieve this transparency.
This requirement only applies when the call is based on analytics. If a call is blocked based on a DNO list, there is no requirement to provide immediate notification.
The Order further directs voice service providers to cease using the standard version of SIP code 603, or SIP codes 607 or 608, for this purpose.
The Order does not provide any additional protections for lawful callers because the FCC does not adopt any requirements for blocking based on reasonable analytics and the blocking notification rules adopted in the Order are expansions of our existing rules, rather than wholly new requirements. The Order states:
The record does not suggest that our current protections will be insufficient to protect lawful callers after these particular incremental expansions take effect. Moreover, and as discussed previously, we believe that the deployment of SIP code 603+ will provide significant benefit to callers that, when paired with our existing protections, are sufficient to protect the interests of callers.
This provision of the Order goes into effect 12 months (one year) after the order is published in the Federal Register. This order has not been published in the Federal Register yet, but it could go into effect as early March 2026.
c. No requirement to display caller name (yet).
The FCC declined to require the display of caller name information when a provider chooses to display an indication that caller ID has been authenticated. Although it does not adopt such a mandate, the FCC urges providers to continue to develop next-generation tools, such as Rich Call Data (RCD) and branded calling solutions, to ensure that consumers receive this information and welcome any updates industry has on its progress. The FCC noted that it may consider a mandate in the future, particularly if the timely deployment of such valuable tools does not occur without Commission intervention.
*This blog is not legal advice. Legal advice must be tailored to the particular facts and circumstances of each unique matter.
Citations:
- An ATDS or autodialer under the TCPA is a system that has the capacity to use a random or sequential number generator to either store or produce phone numbers to be called. To learn more about this read this blog.
- The Order also limited senders of text messages made using an ATDS to a one-time, revocation-confirmation text. This provision took effect in April of 2024.
- A SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) code, also known as a SIP response code, is a three-digit numerical code used to indicate the status of a SIP request or transaction, similar to HTTP status codes.