The National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates
Resolution 2007-05
TELEPHONE CUSTOMER PRIVACY
Whereas, the business of providing telecommunications services requires and enables telecommunications carriers to engage in full-time monitoring of their subscribers’ private communications;
Whereas, telecommunications customers have a long-standing reasonable expectation of the privacy of the details of their individual telecommunications use, including information about particular telephone calls, the content of the call, the number from which a call is made, the number to which it is made, when it was made, how long it was made, and aggregated information about calls to or from identifiable individuals or entities;
Whereas, the practice of “data mining,” the analysis of customers’ private call detail, can be used for customer “profiling” in conjunction with other data bases, in order to identify people based on information they consider to be private including income, medical conditions, academic information, ethnicity and many other characteristics;
Whereas the Customer Proprietary Network Information (“CPNI”) provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and other federal and state statutes require telephone utilities to maintain the privacy of their customers calling detail;
Whereas, the United States Constitution and state constitutions recognize both a right to freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures and a related right to privacy, and federal and state courts have recognized that there is a substantial state interest in the protection of privacy;
Whereas, there have been widespread media reports, and statements by public officials regarding so-called “data mining,” involving the disclosure of large volumes of private customer calling information by telecommunications carriers to the National Security Agency without consent of customers or court authorization;
Whereas, the federal government has acknowledged that it is engaged in an ongoing program of warrantless wiretapping of private telecommunications calling originating in the United States,
Whereas, the utility commissions of the states have an obligation to regulate the practices of telecommunications carriers, including laws relating to customer privacy,
Wherefore, it is resolved that NASUCA urges state commissions to investigate the acts and practices of telecommunications carriers under their jurisdiction in order to determine whether customer records and calls are being unlawfully monitored and disclosed, and
that state commissions should continue to enforce state laws related to telephone customer privacy, and
that regulated telecommunications carriers should be required to preserve any and all records and evidence of the disclosure or monitoring of data that is inconsistent with CPNI rules or other applicable law, and identify all employees with knowledge of such activities; now therefore be it
RESOLVED, that the NASUCA Telecommunications Committee and Consumer Protection Committee, with the approval of the Executive Committee of NASUCA, are authorized to take all steps consistent with this Resolution in order to secure its implementation.
ADOPTED BY THE MEMBERSHIP
June 12, 2007
Denver, Colorado