The Enforcement Bureau of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has reached a settlement with a telecommunications provider in connection with charges that the company transmitted illegal, AI-generated robocalls in advance of New Hampshire’s 2024 Democratic Presidential Primary in January.
According to an Order issued by the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau in late August, Lingo Telecom has agreed to pay a $1 million civil penalty to resolve the Bureau’s investigation into claims that the company transmitted nearly 4000 generative AI Deepfake voice messages that imitated the voice of President Joseph Biden two days ahead of the Democratic Primary.
Lingo also reportedly failed to verify the accuracy of the caller ID information it used and then mislabeled the calls with the highest level of caller ID attestation, leading other transmitters to believe that the calls were legitimate.
The settlement between Lingo and the FCC follows a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture issued by the Commission in May, in which the FCC proposed a fine of $2 million for Lingo’s alleged violation of the Commission’s caller ID authentication rules, a first-of-its-kind enforcement action by the FCC. In addition to paying the $1 million penalty, Lingo has also agreed as part of its settlement with the FCC to implement a robust compliance plan to prevent future such violations of FCC’s rules.
The text of the FCC’s Order on its Consent Decree with Lingo Telecom is available at https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-24-790A1.pdf.
