1、CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress Legal SidebarLegal Sidebari i What Is an Autodialer (Part II)? The Supreme Court (Mostly) Resolves a Robocall Enforcement Question April 28, 2021 The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) makes it illegal to call any wireless phone
2、 number using an “automatic telephone dialing system” (an autodialer) or an artificial or prerecorded voice. While the text of the TCPA defines “automatic telephone dialing system,” uncertainty has emerged over how this definitionwritten in 1991applies to a technological landscape that is far differ
3、ent today from what existed at the time the TCPA became law. On April 1, 2021, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, reversing the Ninth Circuits interpretation of the term “automatic telephone dialing system” used in the TCPA. The TCPA defines an automatic telep
4、hone dialing system as “equipment which has the capacity (A) to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator; and (B) to dial such numbers.” The Ninth Circuit had held that the qualifying phrase “random or sequential number generator” only applies to