FCC Adopts Tougher Phone Record Privacy Rules

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FCC Adopts Tougher Phone Record Privacy Rules

The FCC has issued an order aimed at toughening up protections for consumers' personal phone records after revelations last year of leaks. By Reuters InformationWeek

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission issued an order Monday aimed at toughening up protections for consumers' personal phone records after revelations last year of leaks.

The FCC said carriers such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., the two biggest telephone carriers, are prohibited from releasing customers' phone records when a customer calls the carrier except when a password is provided.

If a customer does not provide a password, carriers may not release the customer's phone call records except by sending it to the address of record or by the carrier calling the customer at the telephone number on record, the agency said.

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Europe's Plan to Track Phone and Net Use

Europe's Plan to Track Phone and Net Use

Article published at Spiegel online.

A proposed law would require companies to keep detailed data about people's Internet and phone use.

European governments are preparing legislation to require companies to keep detailed data about people's Internet and phone use that goes beyond what the countries will be required to do under a European Union directive.

In Germany, a proposal from the Ministry of Justice would essentially prohibit using false information to create an e-mail account, making the standard Internet practice of creating accounts with pseudonyms illegal.

A draft law in the Netherlands would likewise go further than the European Union requires, in this case by requiring phone companies to save records of a caller's precise location during an entire mobile phone conversation.

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