skip to navigation | skip to content
Inslee listens to a constituent.

Montage of Wing Point in Bainbridge Island and the Edmonds Ferry.

Jay Inslee: Washington's 1st Congressional District

Home > Issues > Privacy > Phone Records

Issues

Protecting Your Privacy

Phone records legislation advances quickly in House

1 February 2006

A key House panel held a hearing on the threat posed to American consumers by online companies that sell phone records without the consent of account holders.  Among measures discussed aimed at protecting such information included a bill penned by committee members U.S. Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).

Their bill - the first offered in the House - would criminalize the practice of impersonating an account holder to obtain phone records, known as pretexting.  It also calls for consumers to be notified if their phone records are breached.

During the hearing, Inslee announced King County Sheriff Sue Rahr endorsed his bill.  The letter she sent on Wednesday said, "In my view, enactment of your legislation during this session of Congress is imperative.  It will go a long way toward protecting millions of consumers from the theft and use of their private phone numbers and, especially, toward ensuring the effectiveness and security of law enforcement operations, missions, and personnel without compromise."

Inslee added, "Congress needs to act with dispatch to get this job done.  The breach of phone records not only compromises consumer privacy, but it also puts public safety at risk."

Online companies that obtain phone records by posing as account holders and sell them to anyone who will pay around $100 threaten the privacy of all Americans, but are of particular concern to law enforcement officials.  Criminals could use such services to get phone records of police officers, putting the identity of informants and undercover colleagues at risk.

Federal law currently does not ban pretexting to access phone records, but it does ban the practice when used to mine financial data.  The Inslee-Blackburn Consumer Telephone Records Protection Act of 2006, H.R. 4662, would make pretexting to obtain phone records a federal crime, punishable for individuals by up to $500,000 in fines and 10 years in prison.

It was unveiled on January18 and introduced yesterday, the first day this year that legislation could be filed.  It has over 20 cosponsors, including U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, who was King County's sheriff from 1997 to 2004.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas) has pledged to move legislation addressing the issue.  Next week, the panel is slated to vote on a phone records privacy bill, which likely will include parts, if not all, of the Inslee-Blackburn proposal.