Cellphone Privacy Bill Stalls over Senate Amendments
Delays on a Senate cellphone privacy bill (S-2389) could make it hard to complete a package on cellphone privacy, Hill and lobbyist sources said. For a bundle to move, chairmen must agree to merge the House and Senate Commerce Committee bills (HR-4943, S-2389), plus companion House and Senate Judiciary committee bills (HR-4709, S-2178). But the Senate Commerce bill differs markedly from the House bill, and faces a host of amendments -- some said by consumer and privacy groups to threaten already scant consumer protections.
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“The bill had at best modest improvement in privacy protections for consumers,” said Jeannine Kenney, senior policy analyst-Consumers Union (CU), which opposed the Senate bill even before the amendments came up. One would weaken a provision requiring revision of FCC rules to make carriers “ensure the security and confidentiality of customer proprietary network information,” according to a Senate aide. The amendment would let the FCC decide whether to act, rather than require agency action, he said.
The FCC should be forced to take action, CU said. The “explosion in unscrupulous businesses offering consumer phone records for sale” shows the problem’s severity, the group said in a letter sent last week to the Senate Commerce Committee. The letter was also signed by the Consumer Federation of America, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and AARP. The bill’s main deficiency is a passage that would preempt state efforts at guarding privacy, Kenney said. It’s a “significant step backward,” she said. The House bill, which CU backs, contains no such element.
An amendment that would give phone companies discretion in notifying customers when their data are accessed in illegal breaches is likely to start fires, according to lobbyists. “That’s a problem. Companies are always going to do things that favor themselves,” said Sherwin Siy, staff counsel-Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Consumer groups want anyone whose data are accessed illegally to be notified. Another troublesome amendment would give individual consumers the right to sue data brokers that breach their privacy; the current bill offers that recourse only to companies. While consumer groups support the broader approach, committee Republicans may object to the provision for fear it would spawn suits, some lobbyists said.
CU objects to the bill’s failure to alter the regulatory regime, letting carriers obtain “only weak opt-in consent” from consumers before they broadly share private records, it said. Under “opt-in,” a consumer must grant permission before data can be released.