WASHINGTON–The recent scandal at Hewlett-Packard Co.–where executives collected the phone records of board members to ascertain who had been speaking with the news media–is the impetus needed to push a bill onto the House floor requiring carriers to better protect telecommunications customer call records while making the sale of those records illegal, said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), chairman of the House Commerce Committee.
Hewlett-Packard recently admitted it hired a private investigator–who in turn hired a company that uses pretexting–to obtain the telephone records. Pretexting is impersonating a customer to obtain information. It is explicitly illegal with regards to financial information, but the law is less clear when telecommunications customer call records are involved.
Pretexting hit the attention of policy makers at all levels of government earlier this year when it was disclosed that telecommunications customer call records were for sale over the Internet. Immediately bills were introduced in Congress to address the issue, and both the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission began taking action to tighten customer-privacy rules.
Now, months later, the bills are stalled in Congress and the regulatory agencies have not completed their work.
The issue appeared dead until the Hewlett-Packard scandal erupted.
Barton told reporters that he hoped to convince the House Republican leadership to allow consideration of the bill that easily passed the House Commerce Committee.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the House telecommunications subcommittee, told RCR Wireless News that another committee, although he declined to name which one, was objecting to the bill being considered.
On the Senate side, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) blasted the Republicans for not considering a bill that would make it a crime to obtain telecommunications customer call records and for phone-company employees to sell them. The Telephone Records and Privacy Protection (TRAPP) Act passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, but neither it nor a bill regarding carrier actions has been considered on the Senate floor. The Trapp Act passed the House of Representatives earlier this year.
“Stealing someone’s private phone records is absolutely a criminal act and the fact that it can’t be prosecuted as one has got to change. Stealing a person’s phone log can lead to serious personal, financial and safety issues for just about any American. Pretexting companies are popping up across the country and we need to give law enforcement the tools to track these criminals down and put them out of business,” said Schumer. “The Trapp Act will make it a federal offense, punishable as a felony, to obtain customer information from a telephone service provider by false pretenses or access a customer account on the Internet to obtain billing information without authorization.”
On the regulatory front, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin confirmed the commission is investigating AT&T Inc. in connection with the Hewlett-Packard scandal. Martin, following a Senate hearing on his nomination for another five-year term, told reporters the agency sent a letter of inquiry to AT&T, but declined to offer details.
Martin said the FCC is considering requiring carriers to verify personal-identification numbers before giving out customer call records via the telephone. Some have urged the commission to outlaw the release of call records over the phone, instead requiring consumers to visit a retail location with identification to request their records.
The scandal has not left those involved at Hewlett-Packard unscathed. Patricia Dunn, chairman of the company’s board, has said she will give up her chair, but will remain on the board.
Both the Department of Justice and the California attorney general’s office are investigating whether any crimes were committed.
