FCC Boosts Pretexting Laws for Phone Companies
A good move since cell providers have a lot of information about us and we all have a cell. Cingular, for example, still uses the last 4 of the SSN for authentication – tell them you can’t remember it and your address will do. The new regulations passed by the FCC should help to prevent that type of thing.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has prohibited telephone and mobile phone carriers from releasing customer records over the phone without a password in an effort to protect against the practice of pretexting.
The FCC, in rules released yesterday, will also require carriers to notify customers immediately when there are changes to their accounts, such as a new password, a new address or an online account opened.
“The unauthorized disclosure of consumers’ private calling records is a significant privacy invasion,” FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in a statement. “Compliance with our consumer protection regulations is not optional for any telephone service provider. We need to take whatever actions are necessary to enforce these requirements to secure the privacy of personal and confidential information of American customers.”
In case you don’t know, find out what pretexting is all about and ways to prevent it.
