New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed new legislation on November 8 that institutes robocall-blocking regulations in the state.

The governor signed two bills into law. One bill, S.6267a/A.268a, requires telecom providers to block robocalls from specific phone numbers. It is based on a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule that went into effect this summer. It focuses on preventing calls from numbers that normally don’t or can’t make outgoing calls, under the reasoning that such calls are likely to be the result of spoofing by illegal robocallers.

The other bill, S.4281a/A.585a, requires telecom providers to implement STIR/SHAKEN call authentication protocols. Other states have enacted similar legislation and the federal STIR/SHAKEN implementation deadline for major providers was June 30 of this year.

In the announcement accompanying the legislation, Governor Hochul said, "New Yorkers are fed up with annoying, predatory robocalls, and we're taking action to stop them. This legislation will enable telecom companies to prevent these calls from coming in in the first place, as well as empower our state government to ensure that voice service providers are validating who is making these calls so enforcement action can be taken against bad actors."