Telecommunications: caller identification fraud.

Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including telephone corporations. Existing law, with specified exceptions, directs the commission to require any call identification service offered by a telephone corporation, or by any other person or corporation that makes use of the facilities of a telephone corporation, to allow the caller to withhold, on an individual basis, the display of the caller's telephone number from the telephone instrument of the individual receiving the call. However, existing law prohibits a caller from withholding the display of the caller's business telephone number when that number is being used for telemarketing purposes. Existing federal law, the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009, with certain exceptions, makes it unlawful for any person within the United States, in connection with any telecommunications service or internet protocol enabled voice service, to cause any caller identification service to knowingly transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value. This bill would prohibit a caller from entering, or causing to be entered, false government information into a caller identification system with the intent to mislead, cause harm, deceive, or defraud the recipient of the call. The bill would prohibit a person or entity from making a call knowing that false government information was entered into the caller identification system with the intent to mislead, cause harm, deceive, or defraud the recipient of the call. The bill would make the violation of these prohibitions subject to a civil penalty of up to $10,000 for each violation. The bill would authorize a city attorney, district attorney, or the Attorney General to bring an action to enforce the bill's prohibitions and, if in investigating a complaint over the unlawful use of an automatic dialing announcing device the commission determines that a violation of these prohibitions may have occurred, the bill would require the commission to give notice of the potential violation to the district attorney for the county in which the call was received and to the Attorney General. The bill would provide that its requirements and remedies are in addition to any other applicable law prohibiting the same or similar activity.