WASHINGTON-The House and the Senate will each hold separate hearings next month on the ever-burgeoning consumer-privacy scandal regarding the disclosure and sale of telecommunications records.
The Senate Commerce consumer-affairs subcommittee hearing is scheduled for Feb. 8. The House Commerce Committee will hold its hearing Wednesday. Witnesses have yet to be announced for both hearings.
“The commercial sale of consumers’ personal phone records is unthinkable. Americans should not have to fear that using their own phone will jeopardize their personal privacy and make them even more vulnerable to identity theft. It is going to take a cooperative effort from the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and industry to ensure that these unsavory practices cease and this hearing will help us determine how to make that happen quickly and effectively,” said Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee.
Meanwhile, Sprint Nextel Corp. jumped on the lawsuit bandwagon with a filing in Florida against First Source Information Specialists Inc., the parent company of locatecell.com, celltolls.com and datafind.org.
“Protection of confidential customer information is our number one priority and we are taking aggressive action to ensure that any threat to privacy is eliminated immediately. First Source Information Specialists continues to display egregious disregard for privacy, and previous industry-driven actions do not appear to have deterred their illegal activities,” said Ken Nakamura, Sprint Nextel’s vice president of telecom management and chief privacy officer.
Sprint joins Verizon Wireless, Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and T-Mobile USA Inc. in filing various lawsuits against First Source. In addition, the states of Illinois and Missouri have also filed lawsuits against the company.
The moves come one day after the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission said the practice of pretexting-impersonating a customer to obtain call records-is illegal.
The FTC believes pretexting is illegal because it is a deceptive act used to gain sensitive information, said Betsy Broder, assistant director in the FTC’s division of privacy and identity protection.
Broder acknowledged that the FTC does not have jurisdiction over telecommunications carriers, but she said the agency has jurisdiction over the data brokers that are obtaining and selling the information. The FCC has jurisdiction over telecommunications carriers.
The cell-phone records scandal has been escalating since the CBS Evening News broadcast a report critical of the wireless industry and the apparent theft and sale of customer-call records. The CBS story came out shortly after an Internet blogger managed to buy the cell-phone records of retired Army General Wesley Clark.
On the legislative side, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) recently introduced legislation to make pretexting illegal. While Schumer’s bill, known as the Consumer Telephone Records Protection Act of 2006, is the only one to be introduced, other senators have expressed interest in solving the issue. Schumer’s bill, which has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, is the toughest so far, he said, adding he would work with anyone who wants to solve the problem. Schumer said both the Judiciary and Commerce Committees have jurisdiction over the topic.
