If it seems your phone has been ringing more often, you’re not imagining things. Political calls have surged as the US presidential election approaches. That’s especially true in swing states, where the contest is close and candidates are pouring time and money into phone campaigns to sway voters.
Hiya is able to measure the volume of political calls — or at least the ones that people consider unwanted. Consumers using Hiya Protect via their carrier, device manufacturer, or the Hiya mobile app, can report unwanted calls as one of 15 different types of spam. Because Hiya users are able to specify “political” when reporting an unwanted call, Hiya is able to track unwanted political call volumes over time.
In August, users reported nearly 25,000 unwanted political calls. The upward trend is even more pronounced in swing states, as you can see in the second graph below, which measures one of the swing states, North Carolina.
In the US, unwanted political calls began to increase early in the year, hitting a peak of nearly 25,000 in August.
The steady increase in unwanted political calls is even more pronounced in swing states, as seen in this graph of North Carolina.
What Hiya users are saying about political calls
Not only can Hiya users report the category of an unwanted call, they can also leave a comment about the call they just received. Here’s a sampling of comments submitted by Hiya users about the political calls they’ve received. Keep in mind that these comments are reporting calls they consider to be unwanted nuisance or scam calls.
“Threatening me telling me who I should vote for. Please help.”
“I’ve received 4 calls so far saying we have you in our records as not registered to vote, then wants you to click on a fake link to steal your identity.”
“Scam call from India fraudulently claiming they are performing a survey of registered voters. The call was received at 9:45 pm.”
“Harassing caller demanding I vote for Kamala.”
“Said I needed to contribute to the Republican Party or my right to vote could not be upheld.”
“Says election survey but foreign accent, using spoofed local number.”
“Lying scammers taking advantage of election to steal money.”
“Calls concerning the election! Please, I need it to stop! I have over 70 calls in the last 2 days.”
One comment that seemed to sum up the general sentiment about political calls was this: “I hate political calls from people I don’t vote for.” Users who received calls from candidates of an opposing political party or someone they didn’t plan to vote for were more likely to report the call as fraud or spam, even if it was a legitimate political call.
There also seems to be a bit of exhaustion from call recipients who receive a lot of political calls. Here are two comments that express the feeling of potential voters right now:
“I will be glad when the 2024 elections are over, no matter who I vote for.”
“God bless us all when elections are over.”
Concerns about deepfake robocalls
One of the biggest concerns related to political calls in this year’s election is the fear that AI-generated voice clones — often referred to as deepfakes — will be used to influence the election. The calls could either promote or disparage a specific candidate, or could be used to suppress voter turnout.
We saw this early in the presidential election cycle. During the primaries, voters in New Hampshire received a Joe Biden voice-clone robocall encouraging voters not to vote in the primary election. The AI-generated voice clone of President Biden told voters to instead save their vote for the general election.
See our blog post Biden voice-clone robocall highlights AI-generated phone scams
Although the Biden call was eventually debunked as fake, there are fears that deepfake robocalls made closer to election day could influence voters before there is time to investigate them.
Governments pass legislation
The California legislature recently enacted a law that prohibits distributing deceptive audio and visual media within 120 days of an election in California. Assembly Bill 2839 (AB 2839) states:
California is entering its first-ever artificial intelligence (AI) election, in which disinformation powered by generative AI will pollute our information ecosystems like never before. Voters will not know what images, audio, or video they can trust. In order to ensure California elections are free and fair, California must, for a limited time before and after elections, prevent the use of deepfakes and disinformation meant to prevent voters from voting and deceive voters based on fraudulent content.”
Earlier this year, the US Federal Trade Commission sought public comment on a proposal that would prohibit the impersonation of individuals, which would extend protections of a new rule on government and business impersonation. And in August, the European Union enacted the AI Act, the world’s first major law regulating the use of AI. It governs the way companies develop, use and apply AI.
How to defend against deepfakes
So, what can be done to protect citizens from nefarious voice clones as the election looms? Hiya has a solution. Recently Hiya acquired Locus.ai, the industry leader in deepfake detection solutions. The combination of Loccus.ai’s voice intelligence technology and the Hiya’s Adaptive AI fraud prevention system, provides businesses and carriers with the most complete fraud call protection available across the industry today. This versatile solution supports multiple languages, formats, and platforms, including video recordings and live calls across all devices.
This deepfake voice detection technology is now available as Hiya AI Voice Detection. Businesses and carriers can immediately integrate AI voice detection into their own services and applications to enhance consumer trust and security.