Enlarge / President Joe Biden leaving the White House on August 16, 2024, in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Anna Moneymaker )
A phone company agreed to pay a $1 million fine for transmitting spoofed robocalls in which a deepfake of President Joe Biden’s voice urged New Hampshire residents not to vote. Lingo Telecom, which is based in Texas, agreed to a settlement with the Federal Communications Commission, the agency announced today.
Lingo Telecom “will pay a $1 million civil penalty and implement a historic compliance plan—the first of its kind secured by the FCC—that will require strict adherence to the FCC’s STIR/SHAKEN Caller ID authentication rules,” the FCC said. The settlement includes “requirements that the company abide by ‘Know Your Customer’ (KYC) and ‘Know Your Upstream Provider’ (KYUP) principles” that focus on vetting call traffic to ensure it is trustworthy, and “requirements that the company more thoroughly verify the accuracy of the information provided by its customers and upstream providers.”
The calls made before New Hampshire’s presidential primary in January were orchestrated by Steve Kramer, a Democratic consultant who was working for a candidate running against Biden. Kramer was indicted on charges of voter suppression and impersonation of a candidate, and the FCC proposed a $6 million fine for Kramer. The calls inaccurately displayed a phone number associated with a prominent New Hampshire political operative.
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