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January 20, 2006
Calling all legislators ...
The news of how easy it is to obtain cell phone records from some online vendors broke last week, and now lawmakers are moving to criminalize "pretexting" or the practice of pretending to be the owner of the cell phone account.
Even though many people believe that shady types get access to customer records by hacking, today's article in the New York Times shows that breaches often are permitted by employees, contractors and partners. Many critics believe the onus should be on the the cell phone companies to do a better job of protecting customers' privacy.
What's new: Lawmakers on Capitol Hill and law enforcement agencies are vowing to protect consumers' cell phone records by penalizing those who use deception to obtain customer information. But some experts say the problem won't go away unless phone companies better protect customer data.Bottom line: Experts say there are several steps operators can take to verify that a records request is legitimate, including use of a customer password system, confirmation of each request by sending a text message to the customer's cell phone and implementation of auditing systems at customer service centers.
Posted by Faith Okpotor at January 20, 2006 03:52 PM
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