WASHINGTON- Three senators Wednesday introduced legislation that would make it a crime for someone to obtain cell phone customer call records under false pretenses. Senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) introduced the bill as the Senate came in for a rare January session.
The bill comes on the heels of major media focus on the sale of cell phone records. Indeed, wireless carriers could be subject to enforcement action if the Federal Communications Commission determines they have not adequately protected customer call records from the prying eyes of data brokers, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told a powerful lawmaker in a letter made public Tuesday.
“We are looking into how companies who are selling these records have obtained customer proprietary information. To the extent that they have acquired this information from telecommunications carriers, we will take strong enforcement action to address any noncompliance by carriers with their obligations to protect customer proprietary information under the Communications Act and the commission’s existing rules,” said Martin.
Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), the author of the provision in the Communications Act that requires carriers to protect customer proprietary network information (CPNI), in November asked both the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission what they were doing about this problem.
“High-tech hucksters are using the Internet to sell illegally-obtained consumer telephone records and I urge the FTC and FCC to step up their enforcement efforts already underway to ensure that consumer telephone records do not become commodities in a cyberspace bazaar,” said Markey in a statement on his Web site accompanying the release of the responses he received from the FCC and FTC.
Markey is the ranking member of the House telecommunications subcommittee.
For its part, the FTC acknowledged that telephone records are afforded less protection than financial records. “Although consumer telephone records are not generally covered by (the law protecting financial records known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act), the FTC may still bring a law-enforcement action against a pretexter of telephone records if it has reason to believe that the pretexter’s activities constitute unfair or deceptive practices,” said FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras.
Pretexting is impersonating the subscriber whose records they are trying to get.
Privacy advocates want stricter rules governing the release of consumer proprietary network information. The Electronic Privacy Information Center petitioned the FCC last summer to tighten rules to cover third-party data brokers specifically. FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said Tuesday that the EPIC petition “could be an appropriate vehicle for tightening our rules.”
In comments to the FCC regarding the EPIC petition, CTIA said that additional rules would harm consumers by adding to carrier costs.
Late last week, Cingular Wireless L.L.C. obtained a temporary restraining order against two companies it believes have sold mobile-phone records online.
The Federal court in Atlanta granted the order against Data Find Solutions Inc. and First Source Information Specialists Inc. Cingular said it believes Data Find Solutions once owned and operated several websites, including locatecell.com and celltolls.com, which advertise the sale of cell-phone records. The websites are now believed to be owned and operated by First Source Information Specialists.
Martin’s response to Markey and the restraining order come on the heals of a damaging report on the CBS Evening News last Thursday which condemned the wireless industry at large for not protecting customer call records.
“Cingular will not tolerate the theft of customer records. We plan to continue fighting cell-phone record theft on a number of fronts, including working with law enforcement and policymakers to crack down on Web sites that offer cell-phone records for sale,” said Joaquin Carbonell, Cingular’s executive vice president and general counsel.
Cingular urged its customers to protect their accounts by adding a password and shredding documents.
The issue came to a head after an Internet blogger, John Aravosis, said he was able to buy his own call records. Aravosis’ carrier is Cingular. More notably, Aravosis said he bought the records of retired Army General Wesley Clark. Aravosis said Clark’s carrier is T-Mobile USA Inc.’s Omnipoint division. T-Mobile USA released a statement calling the actions of the data brokers deplorable.
Such online services fall into a cloudy legal area. Although there is legislation barring identity theft, no law specifically targets firms that sell cell-phone records.
Because of the lack of such legislation, liberal grassroots group Moveon.org started a petition drive to get Congress to act.
