US Cell Phone Records for Sale
Filed in archive Privacy and Security by tom on January 17, 2006
Selling phone records is not illegal. But obtaining them under false pretenses -- called "pretexting" -- violates section 5 of the federal trade commissionAct, which deals with unfair and deceptive trade practices. Pretexting doesn't just occur with phone records; private investigators and others use it to obtain everything from financial records to medical files. The FTC prosecuted three companies in 2001 for using pretexting to obtain records from financial institutions, but since then has seemingly done little to address the pretexting of cell-phone records.
The FTC's Betsy Broder says the commission has prosecuted a large number of cases around privacy but wouldn't discuss whether it was currently investigating the sale of phone records.
One of the main reasons this keeps cropping up is the apparent unwillingness of the carriers to address the issue, even if most records are being obtained in what may be an unethical manner - and you can only obtain cellphone records from the carriers themselves.
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