Sprint Sues Data Brokers; Hill Hearings Set
Sprint Nextel Fri. filed a lawsuit in Fla. against the parent company of 4 online data brokers it alleges use “illegal and deceptive practices” to obtain and sell customer call records. The lawsuit, the first by Sprint against a data broker, means all 4 major national carriers have filed such suits. Meanwhile, Senate Commerce Committee announced Fri. it will hold a hearing Feb. 8 in the consumer subcommittee chaired by Sen. Allen (R-Va.) to look more closely at the theft of consumer cellphone records. The House Commerce Committee plans a hearing Feb. 1.
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Sprint’s lawsuit is directed against 1st Source Information Specialists, the parent of www.locatecell.com, www.celltolls.com, www.datafind.org and www.peoplesearchamerica.com. “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,” said Kent Nakamura, chief privacy officer for Sprint. Verizon Wireless, Cingular and T-Mobile have also announced legal actions against information brokers.
Some of the better-known companies that sell cellphone information on the Internet appeared to be feeling the heat. Locate.cell.com’s site was down Fri. Celltolls.com’s site said it was no longer providing records for Cingular subscribers. Intelligent eCommerce previously said its Bestpeoplesearch.com site would no longer perform cellphone record searches.
The Senate hearing will focus on unauthorized 3rd-party access to phone records and legislative solutions and will assess the proper roles of the FCC and FTC. “Congress must ensure that Americans’ phone records are protected and that there will be severe penalties for invading privacy,” Commerce Committee Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska) said. Witnesses will be announced when available, a committee spokesman said.
The House Commerce Committee plans a hearing on the illegal sale of cellphone records Feb. 1, Chmn. Barton announced Fri. At the hearing he plans to introduce legislation to ban “pretexting.” This practice involves using the identity of another person to obtain their personal phone records. “It is not illegal to use this means to obtain call records,” Barton said: “I mean to make it very illegal.” He also said telephone companies may not be doing enough to protect consumer privacy and vowed to “make it clear that companies owe their customers a duty to privacy and need to devise new ways to foil pretexters,” he said. The committee has asked the FCC to provide the latest privacy compliance reports of the 5 largest telephone and cell phone companies.
Carrier sources expressed concern Fri. about the FCC acting hastily to approve additional regulations for protecting customer proprietary network information, which they continue to insist aren’t needed. On Jan. 20, the Commission called carriers in for a meeting. A source said the questioning was generally friendly, with FCC aides looking for answers on how information brokers are getting the information they're selling through the Internet. Chmn. Martin is circulating a further notice of proposed rulemaking on the issue.
One regulatory attorney said carriers shouldn’t suffer “collateral damage” because of the wrongdoing of information brokers. The FCC often “turns around and smacks whoever they have jurisdiction over,” the source said. “It’s the concern of everyone who deals with the FCC on a regular basis. All too often their enforcement actions are just geared to getting press releases.”