Selling Your Phone Records
Buried in your wireline and wireless telephone subscriber agreement is a notice concerning “customer proprietary network information” (CPNI). CPNI is your calling records. CPNI shows the phone numbers you called and received and for how long you talked.
Privacy Rights Clearing House has a guide to “opting out of CPNI sharing.” This is great, because after three phone calls, Cingular was unable to tell me how to opt-out of CPNI. It turns out it’s buried in a general opt-out form. Via “Your Phone Company Sells Your Call Records. Opt Out Now!” from EPIC West.
WHat form do I need to fill out for Cingular?
Follow the “opting out” link, and there’s a list of places to go based on your phone company.
I don’t see anything for t-mobile…
Re: T-mobile
I spent 30 minutes on the phone with T-Mobile customer service (611) recently trying to opt out of CPNI sharing. The person I spoke to had no idea what I was talking about was, even after I explained it in detail. The closest thing she knew of was preventing my name from appearing on Caller ID. Later in the call, after some time spent on hold, she read me a PR statement from T-Mobile commenting on the procuring of call data by unscrupulous companies (T-Mobile doesn’t condone it, blah blah) and offered to put a password on my account so this couldn’t be done.
At one point, I explained that the FCC provides for this right of consumers to opt out of CPNI sharing, etc., and she suggested I call the FCC to ask them exactly what this “Customer Proprietary Network Information” is all about — ’cause she sure never heard of it.
When I asked her if I could speak to someone else who could help me with my request she told me everyone else would tell me the same thing as what she’d told me.
So, I am writing a letter to T-Mobile executive management to complain. Any other suggestions? Would filing an FCC complaint be fruitful? I’d like to do it just for the principle, frankly, even if it wouldn’t help me opt out of CPNI sharing any more quickly.
Smith,
I passed your question to Chris Hoofnagle–he suggested that writing the FCC and your state public utilities commission will help improve things, although perhaps not as quickly as you’d like.
I do think that a password will help somewhat, but what we really need is enforcement of the laws which exist.
Adam et al, now that the FCC has opened a rulemaking on this, it is really important to write to the agency to say that you’re having problems opting out of CPNI sharing. The industry’s first defense is going to be “no problem…no one complains.”
To comment, go to:
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/upload_v2.cgi
and put 96-115 in the proceeding box.
It’s really easy. Only takes 1 min.