SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (WXYZ) — The FCC says in general robotexts are illegal to cell phones that haven’t issued prior consent, but not when it comes to political robotexts.
"They just keep coming and coming," said Michael Howell, who lives in West Bloomfield.
Michael Howell of West Bloomfield says in the last month he’s received dozens of political texts and calls that he doesn’t want.
When asked if the texts swayed his vote, he said, "no, absolutely not."
"Privacy doesn’t really exist and we think that we have it," said Draython Savoi, CEO, Global Network Solutions.
The CEO of Global Network Solutions, a cyber-security solution provider, Draython Savoi says political robotexts are like any other spam texts. They’re likely coming to you because that political party bought your phone number from a third-party business.
"There are several. If you just Google, ‘I want to buy a list of people that are Democrats, I want to buy a list of people that are Republican that make under 100K, you can easily get that list both locally and internationally," revealed Savoi.
The app Robo-Killer tracks political robocalls and texts.
Robo-Killer estimates that Americans received 28 million political robocalls and 938 million political robotexts in September alone.
"I can basically gather anyone’s information within five minutes. That’s how easy it is," Savoi said.
As far as which political party sends the most robotexts and calls?
Robo-Killer says the Michigan Republican party sends more than four times more robotexts than the Democratic party.
But, the Democratic party puts out more robocalls than the Republican party.
"You can always get rid of your phone number, but we’ve tied our phone numbers to so many things, I don’t like changing my phone number, you probably don’t want to change yours, because it’s become part of our life," Savoi said.
Savoi says as long as phones are attached to us we’ll be getting robocalls and texts.
He says tangible ways of protecting yourself include using facial or touch id over a password whenever you can, and making sure all of your passwords are 15 characters or more.
"You can whitelist the people who call you and completely eliminate it all together, you can also put screening on your phone so it announces who is calling you before you answer the call," Savoi said.
"If I don’t see a name on it, it’s not somebody."
The FCC says if you are receiving texts you don’t want you can report the sender by forwarding the texts to 7726 or “SPAM,” and a lot of times with political texts, you can just text back “STOP” in all caps.
