FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 1, 2006 Chris Hoofnagle EPIC West Director (415) 981-6400 hoofnagle@epic.org Sherwin Siy EPIC Staff Counsel (202) 483-1140 x110 siy@epic.org EPIC TESTIFIES BEFORE CONGRESS ON PHONE RECORD SALES Hearings Called to Investigate Online Market in Private Personal Information WASHINGTON, DC - The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing at 2:00 p.m. today on the sale of consumers' phone records online. Recent reporting on the market for selling individuals' records, such as their cell phone histories, has spurred Congressional attention to address the problem of "pretexting," a form of fraud used to obtain the records not just from phone companies, but other service providers as well. "A law banning pretexting would make clear that this practice is unfair, deceptive, illegal, and wrong," said Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director and President of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in testimony prepared for the hearing. EPIC also urged the Congressional Committee to consider long-term solutions to the problem of telephone record privacy. "If telephone service were billed as a utility, as it was in the past for local service and may be in the future with VOIP service, many of the threats to privacy would simply disappear," said Mr. Rotenberg. Rotenberg is scheduled to testify before the Committee, along with Kevin Martin, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commissioner Jon Leibowitz, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, and Robert Douglas, CEO of PrivacyToday.com. Also appearing will be Steve Largent, President of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association. Pretexting and the sale of consumer information has become a major consumer concern over the past few weeks, as an increasing number of press accounts showed that anyone's personal records could be at risk, including undercover police and FBI agents, and such figures as 2004 presidential candidate General Wesley Clark and Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart. EPIC first called the federal government's attention to the problems of pretexting in the summer of 2005, when EPIC notified the Federal Trade Commission that Intelligent E-Commerce, Inc. was using the tactic to obtain and sell mobile phone records online. EPIC subsequently urged the Federal Communications Commission to issue rules that would require telephone companies to establish stronger security standard. "A ban on pretexting will be a step in the right direction," said Chris Hoofnagle, Director of EPIC's West Coast office, who filed the complaint with the FCC. "But pretexting itself is only half the problem. The other half is that companies have such poor security and privacy procedures that can be so easily exploited by bad actors." The Senate will also consider the problem of pretexting next week when a Senate Commerce subcommittee holding hearings on the matter next Wednesday, February 8. EPIC has again been asked to testify. EPIC is a public interest research center in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values. House Energy and Commerce Hearing, "Phone Records for Sale: Why Aren't Phone Records Safe From Pretexting?": http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Hearings/02012006hearing1763/hearing.htm EPIC's page on Illegal Phone Record Sales: http://www.epic.org/privacy/iei/ Senate Consumer Affairs Subcommittee Hearing: "Protecting Consumers' Phone Records": http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/witnesslist.cfm?id=1742