Protect Lifeline Subscribers' Privacy, FCC is Asked

"In yet another Lifeline proceeding, there is near uniform opposition to the Commission's proposals," the National Lifeline Association said. It hopes the FCC "can turn the page on unhelpful, unnecessary and entirely unsupported restrictions" and "focus instead on improving the National Verifier implementation, transparency, operational efficiency, and increasing Lifeline program participation."

A proposal to tighten non-usage rules on plans that don't require monthly payment through new usage tracking and data retention obligations "would be excessively burdensome" and unnecessary, Smith Bagley said. Such a proposal "would not actually help detect any waste and fraud that the Commission argues is present, and would instead only punish the very people the Lifeline program is designed to benefit," New America's Open Technology Institute said. Building an "intrusive surveillance system to combat a totally speculative form of fraud is at best unnecessary and at worst capricious," Free Press said. It recommended the FCC abandon a proposal to require an app that tracks data usage for Lifeline smartphones.

Free Press also called a proposed ban on free handsets with new Lifeline enrollments "a bad solution in search of a problem." Sprint said the FCC likely lacks the statutory jurisdiction to regulate Lifeline handset pricing or the distribution of handsets by eligible telecom carriers in the Lifeline program. It said a proposal to ban in-person distribution of free handsets harms the most vulnerable low-income populations, such as homeless and transient persons: "Even after their application for Lifeline service is approved, consumers without a fixed address face the dilemma of where the handset can be securely delivered." In joint comments with NAACP, Common Cause and others, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights said the proposal to ban free handsets "thwarts private sector efforts at digital inclusion."

Free Press questioned an FCC goal to re-engineer Lifeline to prioritize increased broadband adoption for consumers who wouldn't otherwise subscribe to a broadband plan. "A change in a potential or current Lifeline subscriber's ability to pay for broadband service does not make the Lifeline program extraneous," Sprint said. "It would be a grave mistake to judge the need for or success of the Lifeline program based on a variable that can change" perhaps daily, the carrier added. "Address the hypothetical usage requirement fraud it identified in the FNPRM through measures directed at providers, not users," Access Now said.

"Adding more layers of regulatory burden, especially to Tribal-owned and other small carriers serving Tribal areas, only serves to threaten any chance at the Lifeline program being as successful as possible," said the National Tribal Telecommunications Association.