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STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER JONATHAN S. ADELSTEIN
Re: 1st Source Information Specialists, Inc., d/b/a LocateCell.com,
Apparent Liability for Forfeiture, Notice of Apparent Liability for
Forfeiture, EB File No. EB-05-TC-059; FRN 0014762439; NAL Acct. No.
200632170005.
Personal privacy is at the heart of our quality of life, as Congress
recognized in requiring telecommunications companies to respect their
customers' privacy. A consumer's telephone call records include some of
the most private personal information about an individual. Not
surprisingly, consumers were alarmed when it came to light over the past
year that their telephone records were widely available for sale on the
Internet, without their knowledge or approval, to anyone with an Internet
connection and a credit card. People felt that having their incoming and
outgoing calls available for public view was like having their personal
diaries exposed. Consumers were outraged to find that others could learn
about calls that might expose their business transactions, doctor
appointments, and personal interactions.
Strong and consistent Commission enforcement of our consumer privacy rules
is critical to restore the protections that consumers expect and that
Congress has mandated. This NAL takes aim at one of the apparent purveyors
of consumers' private telephone call records for failure to comply with an
on-going Commission investigation. LocateCell's willful and repeated
failure to fully cooperate with the Commission's subpoena jeopardizes the
Commission's investigation, and warrants the maximum penalty for repeated
non-compliance with Commission orders. The Commission simply cannot
condone failure to cooperate with an investigation that clearly safeguards
the public interest.
This NAL must also be part of a larger effort to address the widespread
availability of confidential phone records, a phenomenon highlighted in
press reports just a few months back estimating that there were dozens of
such web sites. Shining a light on the unauthorized sale of telephone
records may drive some of these providers off the Internet - a positive
first step. Yet, companies like LocateCell appear to slip underground with
disquieting ease, which may pose a real challenge for our efforts to
assess this forfeiture, and we will need to be vigilant against the
ability of bad actors peddling unauthorized telephone records to disappear
and later resurface.
Indeed, we have a lot more work to do to ensure that consumers private
call records are adequately safeguarded. It is essential that we move
ahead with our pending rulemaking on our consumer privacy rules for
telephone companies. The mere fact that these records have been so readily
available, even though telephone companies are required to have firewalls
in place to protect consumers' private information, has raised serious
questions about the mechanisms that are in place to safeguard the
confidentiality of their consumers' information. So, our pending
rulemaking proceeding gives us an important opportunity to find ways to
tighten our rules, to ensure that phone companies are employing adequate
safeguards, and to provide greater security for these sensitive consumer
records. Every provider should be on notice that we are watching closely
and will take the action necessary to protect consumers' privacy, and we
expect them to do the same.