FCC demands carriers protect customer privacy in declaratory ruling

Privacy has been a hot-button topic of late, no more so than in the area of telecommunications. Perhaps as a response to these concerns, the FCC voted today for a Declaratory Ruling that all carriers must safeguard the private data in their customers' mobile devices. This data is known as customer proprietary network information (CPNI) and consists of metadata like phone numbers, call duration, call locations and call logs. Providers are supposed to protect such data already, but until today that only applied to the network -- now phones are covered under it as well. Carriers are still allowed to collect the information for network support purposes, but all precautions must be met so it's not compromised. It appears that third-party apps and services aren't covered under the ruling, and there aren't any strict regulations on how the CPNI may be gathered or protected. Still, the FCC made it clear that if any of the data is exposed, the carriers would have some serious 'splainin to do. To learn more about the ruling, check out the press release after the break.

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Via: Fierce Wireless

Source: FCC

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/28/fcc-declaratory-ruling-customer-privacy/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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