FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has launched an investigation into the data privacy practices of what the Commission calls “the top” 15 mobile carriers’ data retention and data privacy policies. The 15 carriers are: AT&T Services, Best Buy Health, Charter Communications, Comcast, C-Spire, DISH Network, Google, H2O Wireless, Lycamobile, Mint Mobile, Red Pocket, T-Mobile, Verizon and UScellular.
Rosenworcel reminded carriers that in February 2020, the FCC held the nation’s four largest wireless carriers responsible for more than $200 million in fines for selling access to their customers’ location information without taking reasonable measures to protect against unauthorized access to that information. These carriers “voluntarily determined to end the sale of real-time location information to location aggregation services,” said the Chairwoman in the letters.
However, last year, a report by the Federal Trade Commission that studied ISPs representing 98 percent of the mobile internet market observed that ISPs collect “more data than is necessary” to provide services and more data than consumers expect, according to the Chairwoman.
“Given the highly sensitive nature of this data—especially when location data is combined with other types of data, the ways in which this data is stored and shared with third parties is of utmost importance to consumer safety and privacy,” says Rosenworcel. She asked the carriers to answer questions relating to consumer data retention policies for geolocation data and policies regarding sharing data with third parties. She’d like responses by August 3.
Among the data Rosenworcel wants access to are:
- the reason geolocation data is retained;
- how long it’s retained;
- how that data is safeguarded;
- data deletion policies;
- if subs can opt out of data retention policies and, if not, why not;
- policies for sharing data with law enforcement; and
- whether subs are notified when their geolocation data is shared.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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