FTC Seeks Halt to Sale of Consumers' Confidential Telephone Records

The Federal Trade Commission has filed federal court complaints charging five Web-based operations that have obtained and sold consumers' confidential telephone records to third parties with violating federal law. The agency is seeking a permanent halt to the sale of the phone records, and has asked the courts to order the operators to give up the money they made with their illegal operations.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 states that customers' phone records are their private property and can only be disclosed to the customer or with the approval of the customer. According to the FTC complaints in these cases, the defendants advertised on their Web sites that they could obtain the confidential phone records of any individual, including lists of outgoing and incoming calls, and make that information available to their clients for a fee. "The account holders have not authorized the defendants to obtain access to or sell their confidential customer phone records. Instead, to obtain such information, defendants have used, or caused others to use, false pretenses, fraudulent statements, fraudulent or stolen documents or other misrepresentations, including posing as a customer of a telecommunications carrier, to induce officers, employees, or agents of telecommunications carriers to disclose confidential customer phone records," the FTC complaints state. The defendants then sold the records to third parties. According to a Commission complaint, one of the defendants, Integrity Security & Investigations Services, Inc., based in Yorktown, Virginia, also advertised, obtained and sold consumers' financial records, including credit card information.

See the FTC's Web site for more information.