Your phone records are private because
they contain a lot of sensitive personal in-
formation about you, your family and your
activities. People who get your calling and
billing records without your permission
could use that information to hurt you or
steal from you.
Telling lies or pretending to be the account holder
in order to get another person’s calling records
and telephone account information is called
“pretexting.” It is a crime under federal law and
in virtually every state to use lies or pretend to
be someone you’re not to get another person’s
phone records.
Who wants your phone records?
There are many reasons why people might want
your phone records. These people might include:
• Jealous spouses or stalkers.
• People involved in messy divorces or
lawsuits who are looking for dirt.
• Corporate spies or political campaigns
digging for scandals.
Your phone records could be valuable to people
who want to steal from you. Identity thieves can
use personal information to set up credit or phone
service billed in your name. Con artists who want
to steal your assets might be able to discover
where you bank or which nancial services com-
panies you use. Information in your phone re-
cords might also allow someone to impersonate
you in order to commit crimes.
People who are paid to track you down often use
tricks to obtain phone records, sometimes without
legal authority such as a court order or subpoena.
These people include private investigators, bail
bondsmen, debt collectors and others who gain
nancially by obtaining your records for resale to
Protect your phone records
Here are some made-up examples of what could happen if phone records fall into the wrong hands:
Tamika is going through a tough
divorce. Her husband is trying to
gain custody of their children. He
alleges that Tamika spends long
hours with a co-worker. A friend
of the husband pretends to be
Tamika in order to get a copy of
her wireless phone bill. The phone
bill shows late-night calls to the
co-worker. The husband’s lawyer
charges in court that Tamika is an
unt mother because she is having
an affair with a co-worker.
Jonah has a chronic disease and
does not want his workplace to know
about his illness. A jealous co-worker
hired a private investigator to get
copies of Jonah’s cell phone bills. On
the bills, the co-worker noticed that
Jonah often called a certain number.
The co-worker dialed the number
and discovered that Jonah had been
calling a doctor’s ofce. He searched
for the doctor online and found that
the physician is an AIDS specialist.
The co-worker told people at work
that Jonah has AIDS.
Peter is a police ofcer who
has an unlisted home phone
number to protect his family. One
day a man called the unlisted
number and talked to Peter’s six-
year-old son. The caller warned
the boy, “Tell your father to
back off.” The caller also asked
Peter’s son where he went to
school. Peter learned later that
the caller had bought his phone
number from an illegal web site.
Peter had to move to keep his
family safe.
interested parties. Criminals who
want to intimidate witnesses or
harm police ofcers or their fami-
lies might try to access ofcers’
phone records illegally.
How pretexting happens
Pretexting is done in a variety of
ways. In order to get enough infor-
mation to pretend to be you and
get access to your phone records,
pretexters might speak with your
neighbors or coworkers, falsely
claim to be conducting phone sur-
veys, or nd information about you
that is available to the public from
sources such as deeds and court records.
Armed with your personal information, a pretex-
ter could try to access your telephone records by
logging in to your account through the company’s
web site or calling customer service.
Your phone records
Your landline telephone records may include:
• Your billing address and, if different, your
home address.
• Long distance and local toll numbers that
were dialed from the phone.
• Calls billed to a calling card or credit card.
• Numbers from which collect calls were
accepted.
• Dates and lengths of calls outside your
local calling area.
In addition, your wireless phone records may in-
clude:
• The numbers of all phone calls made
or received by you and other family plan
members.
Your online phone accounts may also include:
• Alternate contact information you provided,
such as home or ofce phone numbers.
• Bank or credit information you provided to
pay your bills automatically, such as:
— credit or debit card numbers.
— checking account numbers.
Information the company keeps about you may
also include:
• Your birth date.
• Your Social Security number.
• All telephone and Internet services you
subscribe to.
• Information about the phone that could be
used to track the location of a person who
has the phone.
Consumer protections
A federal law makes it illegal to use pretexting
to buy, sell or obtain phone records without the
customer’s permission. (Law enforcement of-
cers are exempted.) The punishment for lying to
a phone company in order to get someone else’s
phone records includes prison sentences and
nes. The law is enforced by the U.S. Department
of Justice. It also prohibits the sale or transfer of
condential phone records.
Stronger pretexting rules will take effect in late
2007. The consumer protections were passed by
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC),
which oversees telephone companies. The new
rules will require:
• Phone companies to implement password
protection for certain types of access to your
account information.
• That you are informed if your personal
information is accessed or inadvertently
released to a third party without your
consent.
Complaints should go to the FCC and the Federal
Trade Commission (FTC). The Federal Trade
Commission Act makes it illegal for anyone to use
deceit or other unfair practices in order to obtain
non-public personal information about another
person.