Kentucky Attorney General Pushes Federal Government to Strengthen Efforts to Combat Robocalls

Protect Kentuckians from illegal and bothersome robocalls.

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman announced continued efforts to protect Kentuckians from illegal and bothersome robocalls. Attorney General Coleman joined 49 other attorneys general pushing the Federal Communications Commission to strengthen its requirements to help prevent scammers from using the U.S. phone network to make illegal robocalls. 

“Robocalls aren’t just annoying—they disrupt our daily lives, invade our privacy, and can put our most vulnerable people at risk of scams and fraud,” said Attorney General Coleman.  “We’re taking additional steps to protect Kentuckians and make sure they can answer the phone without fear of being deceived.”

Last year, Americans received more than 29.6 billion scam robocalls and texts and lost nearly $2 billion to these scams. According to Robocall Index, 380.6 million robocalls have been placed to Kentucky residents so far this year.

Join Kentucky’s No Call List, maintained as part of the National Do Not Call Registry, here.

The Federal Communications Commission requires all voice service providers to take reasonable measures to vet the phone companies that originate and route calls. However, some voice service providers have failed to do so. Attorney General Coleman and the bipartisan group of attorneys general are asking the Federal Communications Commission to act to better protect consumers:

• Mandate five categories of baseline Know Your Upstream Provider measures. The attorneys general are asking the FCC to demand that voice service providers collect more detailed—and verified—information from their upstream provider customers and refuse or end service to upstream providers that aren’t following the law.
• Require additional triggers for Know Your Upstream Provider monitoring. The attorneys general argue that the FCC should require upstream provider monitoring more regularly to help prevent bad actors from operating unchecked. 
• Strengthen STIR/SHAKEN protections. STIR/SHAKEN is a framework to ensure that a caller is placing calls from phone numbers that are not being spoofed. The attorneys general want these rules more strictly enforced.
• Implement new rules quickly, establish enforcement penalties, and require retention of KYUP data. The attorneys general ask that any rules to help cut down on illegal robocalls should be implemented as soon as possible. They also support base penalties for providers that don’t meet upstream provider monitoring requirements or violate STIR/SHAKEN. 

Attorney General Coleman is part of the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force, which launched Operation Robocall Roundup in 2025. Following their action, the Federal Communications Commission recently issued an order to six companies, ordering them to fix their robocall protection issues or risk losing the ability to route any calls across the U.S. telephone network. 

Attorney General Coleman is joined in signing this letter by the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.