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March 31, 2006
Senate Commerce Committee moves to protect phone records
This is some legislation to keep an eye out for:
The Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation yesterday that makes it illegal for phone companies to sell consumer telephone records without the customer's consent. Fines would be as high as $30,000 per offense and telephone companies found guilty repeatedly could face fines up to $3 million. A similar bill with stiffer penalties is going through the House.
"The bill would also require carriers to inform consumers if their information was accessed without permission and let companies and individuals sue when their records are illegally obtained."
Apparently this is in response to Internet companies offering to obtain this information for a nominal fee. It will be interesting to see if the legislation will apply to government searches or government subcontractors.
Reuters published a story on it yesterday - check it out. :)
Posted by Meredith Mazzotta at March 31, 2006 08:19 AM
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