YouMail Partners with Pindrop to Identify and Stop Deepfake Calling Campaigns During Election Season

YouMail Sensor Network Is Backbone of New Election Communication Defense Grid

IRVINE, CA - August 21, 2024 - YouMail today announced a partnership with Pindrop, the global leader in voice authentication and security, to identify and stop calls utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) or deepfake technologies targeting the public to interfere with US elections.

The newly formed Election Communication Defense Grid (ECDG) is a fully integrated platform that quickly recognizes and shuts down illegal calling connected to political or election related voice calls. The ECDG is a joint effort from Pindrop and YouMail that leverages technology already in use to protect top US banks for similar threats, and that has been used to shut down illegal robocalling campaigns that were making billions of voice calls.

YouMail's vast cross-carrier sensor network collects and analyzes communication evidence from over 20 million phone numbers receiving calls and messages each month. Potentially problematic politically related robocalls and texts are then analyzed to determine whether they are synthetic or deepfakes. Deepfake voice analysis is done using Pindrop Pulse™ Inspect, which is an innovative tool that can detect AI-generated speech in any digital audio.

YouMail and Pindrop together enhance the active monitoring and analysis of potentially problematic political and election robocalls by using AI and deepfake detection. So far in 2024, robocalls from over a thousand members of Congress as well as political candidates running for office have already been analyzed for their intent and for the presence of AI-generated synthetic or deepfake audio.

When there is evidence of problematic calls with AI-generated speech, YouMail Protective Services identifies who the likely carriers are originating this traffic. It then quickly notifies its customers as well as carrier participants in its Fastlanes program so that they can shut down these campaigns and minimize any potential harm. Partners in enforcement agencies are also made rapidly aware of the calls so that they can investigate and take any further necessary action.

"Deepfake audio is increasingly being adopted for nefarious purposes, especially for widespread political fraud during this campaign season," said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. "Consumers can help fight back against these deepfake robocall scams by downloading the YouMail app as any problematic call reaching a YouMail user is irrefutable evidence that can be quickly used to diffuse the calls from harming the rest of America."

About YouMail, Inc.

YouMail protects consumers, enterprises, and carriers from harmful phone calls. YouMail provides US and UK consumers app-based call protection services through the YouMail, Another Number, and HulloMail apps. These solutions answer over a billion live calls per year across well over 20 million active phone numbers, powering America's most robust telephone sensor network in identifying and providing zero-hour protection against illegal calling campaigns and cyberattacks. YouMail Protective Services leverages this sensor network to protect consumer-facing enterprises by detecting and helping shut down imposter traffic that can lead to financial or brand damage, as well as to protect carriers with robocall mitigation services that detect and help stop bad traffic originating, traversing, or terminating on their networks. This sensor network is also used to provide the YouMail Robocall Index™, the nation's definitive source on telephone network activity and attacks. YouMail, Inc. is privately funded and based in Irvine, California.