Fergie's Tech Blog

Privacy Group Urges FCC to Guard Phone Data

Jonathan Krim writes in The Washington Post (obnoxious, but free, registration required -- or use BugMeNot.com):

A privacy group wants the government to force telephone companies to better protect their customers' private data -- including records of calls made and received -- from being bought and sold on the Internet.

In a petition scheduled to be filed today, the Electronic Privacy Information Center urges the Federal Communications Commission to create tougher rules for how and when landline and wireless carriers release customer information.

The group argues that the active marketplace for telephone records demonstrates that security practices at telecommunications companies are lax. Dozens of Web sites operated by data brokers and private investigators offer to sell detailed calling records for as little as $110 for the most recent billing cycle.

The data are often collected by impersonating customers or paying off insiders, according to the petition. Buyers of the information include attorneys trying to find witnesses or suspects, debt collectors and spurned or suspicious lovers.

But EPIC West Coast Director Chris Jay Hoofnagle said stalkers or those engaged in industrial espionage could just as easily be the buyers.

posted by Fergie @ 8/30/2005 08:00:00 AM