US Senators Propose Bill Potentially Impacting Remote Interpreting

Federal legislation has been proposed in the United States that would penalize employers who outsource call center work to locations outside the United States and restrict the use of AI in customer service communications.

The bill, known by its shortened title “Keep Call Centers in America Act of 2025” (S.2495), has received bipartisan sponsorship from Republican Senator James Justice and Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego. The bill was introduced before the US Senate by Mr. Gallego on July 29, 2025.

While the bill does not expressly discuss any specific industries, it defines a call center as, “an operation in which employees (including employees working at one or more facilities or employees working remotely from the home of the employee) receive incoming telephone calls, emails, or other electronic communication for the purpose of providing customer assistance or other service.”

Taken as written, this broad definition potentially includes remote interpreters and multilingual customer service agents.

If so, this bill warrants attention from the language industry as several large remote-interpreting service providers have personnel in locations across the globe.

Penalties for Outsourcing

If passed, the first part of this bill would require US employers to notify the federal government before contracting call center work overseas.

The term “contracting call center work overseas” is further defined as a company transferring facilities or work representing at least 30% of a call center’s average total volume from the previous year to an entity located outside the United States.

American employers who relocate call center work abroad would be added to a publicly available list and would be ineligible to receive federal grants or federally guaranteed loans for five years after being added to the list.

Additionally, if an employer already receiving federal grants or federally guaranteed loans were added to this list, they would have to pay penalties to the agency that awarded the grant or loan.

However, the bill would allow exceptions for employers who could show that not receiving a loan or grant would threaten national security, cause significant job loss in the US, or hurt the environment.

Agencies awarding civilian or defense-related federal contracts would be required to give preference to companies not on the list, and any call center work done under these federal contracts would have to take place in the United States.

Where Are You Calling From?

The second part of the bill would require businesses using AI for customer service to divulge that AI is being used at the beginning of a communication. Consumers would then have the right to be transferred to a human agent located in the US upon request.

The bill would also require human customer service agents to divulge their physical location at the beginning of a communication. If the employee is outside the US, the consumer would again have the right to request a transfer to an agent inside the United States.

Exceptions to this rule would apply for emergency services, or if all employees engaged in customer service communications for a business are located in the US, or in situations where “the consumer knows or reasonably should know that the employee or agent is physically located outside the United States.”

The Federal Trade Commission would also have the power to exempt certain “types of business entities or customer service communications” from this disclosure requirement “if the Commission finds exceptionally compelling circumstances that justify such exclusion.”

At this stage, it is unclear whether businesses providing remote language services or multilingual customer service would fall under any of these broad exemptions.

At the time of writing, the bill has been referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and has not yet been voted on in the Senate.