TNS Robocall Investigation Report Q1 2024: Political Robocalls Surged in Key Battleground States
April 30 2024 - 9:03AM
Business Wire
From illegal donation requests to deceptive
tactics leveraging AI, TNS’ latest Robocall Investigation Report
reveals the evolving landscape of political robocall scams ahead of
the general election
Americans have received over 16 billion political robocalls
since the start of the year, an ominous preview of potential
disinformation and scam risks that voters face leading up to the
2024 US Presidential election in November. The new data was
released today by Transaction Network Services (TNS) as part of its
Q1 2024 Robocall Investigation Report.
Despite Democrat and Republican nominations being determined
relatively early in the primary schedule, battleground states were
inundated with political robocalls throughout the year's first
quarter. Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, Pennsylvania and Nebraska
ranked in the top five for the most political robocalls received
per capita year-to-date.
“Our latest Robocall Investigation Report focuses exclusively on
political robocalls and shows a surge in volume in key swing states
throughout the primary schedule,” said Denny Randolph, President of
TNS’ Communications Market business. “The extent to which bad
actors remain focused on impacting election outcomes and targeting
voters with fundraising and donation robocall and robotext scams
sets up an unprecedented risk climate. In addition, the emergence
of generative AI – already used in voice cloning deepfake robocalls
this primary season – places a heavy burden on policymakers,
regulators and technology leaders to collectively act to protect
voters.”
TNS analyzes more than 1.5 billion daily call events across
hundreds of carrier networks to identify current robocall trends
and scams, while supporting more than 125 service providers in
North America (including four out of the top seven US carriers).
With TNS’ reach extending to almost 250 million active subscribers
and unparalleled insights into cross-carrier call events, TNS is
uniquely positioned to help carriers differentiate between
legitimate robocall activity and unwanted scam/nuisance calls.
The Q1 2024 TNS Robocall Investigation Report also includes
several new insights:
Timing of political robocall volume spikes varied
In some cases, political volume spikes coincided with the
state’s primary date:
- Iowa – up 9,163% during January 8-14 compared to the previous
week (January 15 primary)
- New Hampshire – up 4,097% during January 15-21 compared to the
previous week (January 23 primary)
- Arizona – up 4,450% during March 18-24 compared to the previous
week (March 19 primary)
- Missouri – up 51,521% during March 18-24 compared to the
previous week (March 23 primary)
But in other cases, dramatic volume spikes occurred well before
or after the state’s key primary date:
- Nebraska – up 13,959% during January 8-14 compared to the
previous week (May 14 primary)
- Pennsylvania – up 43,917% during March 18-24 compared to the
previous week (April 23 primary)
- Washington – up 12,234% during March 18-24 compared to the
previous week (August 6 primary)
AI risks emerged with New Hampshire Primary Biden
Deepfake
In the week before the New Hampshire primary in January, voters
received nearly 900,000 robocalls, including an AI deepfake of
President Biden’s voice telling them to stay home and not vote.
Voters should expect AI to factor prominently in November
election disinformation attempts, though there are aggressive
policy, regulatory, carrier and industry efforts underway to
protect Americans. To curb AI-generated political misinformation
robocalls, the FCC unanimously ruled that voice cloning technology
used in robocall scams is illegal. Last year, TNS launched AI Labs,
an initiative researching how AI can be leveraged for future use in
the telecom industry, with an early-stage focus on voice
biometrics, predictive AI-powered call analytics and AI SMS
detection.
Top election scams include misinformation attempts and
donation requests
Bad actors deploy various voice and text scams during election
season, including fraudulent political campaign donation requests,
misleading election surveys and false voter registration calls.
These illegal actions also include impersonating official political
entities, with the goal of sowing misinformation with voters.
To gain access to political robocalls data from Q1 2024,
download the latest edition of TNS’ Robocall Investigation Report
here: tnsi.com/resource/com/tns-robocall-investigation-report/
About TNS:
TNS, a market leader in call identification and robocall
mitigation, provides an end-to-end ecosystem for protecting and
restoring trust in voice calling. TNS addresses the full needs of
wireless and wireline operators globally with TNS Call Guardian®,
the industry-leading call analytics solution that protects
subscribers from high risk and nuisance robocalls. In addition, its
Enterprise product suite, including TNS Enterprise Authentication
and Spoof Protection and TNS Enterprise Branded Calling, is taking
the next step in enriching consumer engagement, making the voice
channel an integral part of an omnichannel customer experience
program. TNS analyzes over 1.5 billion call events across more than
500 operators every single day, enabling enterprises to protect
their brand and consumers, and carriers to identify more unwanted
robocalls. For additional information visit:
https://tnsi.com/resource-center/communications/.
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Company Contact: Clare Cockroft/Bronte Saulle
703-814-8065 pr@tnsi.com Or Media Contact: Bluetext for TNS
Thomas Walter 646-265-3144 tns@bluetext.com