What the TRACED Act Is

The TRACED Act, short for the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act, was signed into law in December 2019. It is the federal law that pushed carriers and callers toward verified caller ID and gave the FCC sharper teeth against illegal robocalls. If you run outbound campaigns, this is the law that explains why your numbers now need to be authenticated and why unverified traffic gets blocked or flagged. It works alongside the TCPA rather than replacing it: the TCPA governs who you may call, and the TRACED Act governs whether your call is trusted on the way through.

What the law set in motion

The TRACED Act did three big things. First, it required carriers to deploy STIR/SHAKEN, the framework that cryptographically signs caller ID so the receiving carrier can trust that the number really belongs to you. This was meant to be in place across the industry by the end of June 2022. Second, it pushed robocall mitigation programs, meaning providers have to file plans describing how they keep illegal traffic off their networks. Third, it raised penalties, with FCC fines reaching into the tens of thousands of dollars per offending call. Together these aim at the people behind Caller ID spoofing and the flood of junk calls that get traffic marked Spam Likely label.

For a legitimate call center the takeaway is practical: get your numbers properly attested so they pass STIR/SHAKEN and do not get buried as spam. For the full compliance map see our VICIdial compliance overview, and read what STIR/SHAKEN is for the signing piece in detail.

What the TRACED Act launched

flowchart TD
  A[TRACED Act 2019] --> B[STIR SHAKEN caller ID signing]
  A --> C[Robocall mitigation programs]
  A --> D[Higher FCC penalties]
  B --> E[Calls verified by carriers]
  C --> F[Providers file mitigation plans]
  D --> G[Bigger fines per illegal call]
  E --> H[Legit traffic avoids spam likely]
  F --> H
  G --> H

The diagram shows the one law branching into three programs, all of which converge on the same goal: trusted traffic gets through and illegal robocalls get stopped.

VICIfast handles STIR/SHAKEN attestation and carrier setup so your real calls stay verified and connectable. See pricing to get numbers that pass.