Selected Laws Governing the Disclosure of
Customer Phone Records by Telecommunications
Carriers, a recently released Congressional Research Service report, summarizes the laws, legislation and congressional actions related to telephone call log records. The Federation of American Scientists has a database of some of these CRS reports, which are selectively released by members of Congress.

Computer Forensic professionals are quickly finding out that several states are now requiring them to be licensed as private investigators.

A recent article in Baseline Magazine details how legislators in South Carolina have introduced pending legislation where “digital forensic evidence gathered for use in a court in this state must be collected by a person with a PI license or through a PI licensed agency.”

The Texas Private Security Board recently made a ruling regarding the licensing regulations which effect computer security consultants and computer forensic examiners. They felt that it is important that these computer related practitioners, as well as the entities hiring their services, are familiar with the licensing regulations, as violations carry steep financial and legal penalties.

There is no doubt that these regulations will cause computer forensic experts to create strategic business alliances with private investigators to insure that evidence they collect is not thrown out of court over licensing issues.

What do you think about this? Should computer forensic experts be required to have a PI license? Do private investigators have the necessary training and expertise to conduct computer forensic examinations?

The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) is pressing the Federal Trade Commission to open an investigation into employer compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) restrictions on employment background checks of criminal records. The CDT, Teamsters Union and employee rights organizations prepared an informative petition with claims of incomplete notification and disclosure by employers in the rail transportation industry, instructive for companies taking adverse actions against employees. The consumer reports were drawn from Acxiom data - apparently not independently verified - which turned up false positives, leading to the employees being dismissed.

Petitioners also ask the Commission to examine the current practices regarding the
consent and notice provided to subjects of background checks. Individual employers,
including small business without legal teams or the knowledge to properly implement
the requirements of the FCRA, are conducting credit and criminal background checks in increasingly large numbers. In order to ensure that consumers’ rights as laid out in the FCRA are maintained, the FTC should, at the least, seek to promulgate best
practices for the obtaining of consent and the notification of adverse decisions.

A few months ago I wrote about the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control maintains License Query System. An added feature to the ABC site is daily, weekly and annual reports of new licenses, license status changes and actions taken against licenses including, revocations, suspensions, fines, and issuance or denial of licenses. The database of reports cannot be searched at the site. Search the archived reports from September 16, 2006 to the present by using this advanced search at Google. Replace “Safeway” with your company name, address or other key words.

safeway site:www.abc.ca.gov/reports/

Reporters and anyone compiling statistical data will be able to make use of the reports menu at the ABC site. Query the reports by location and license type to get a detail of all that meet that criteria. For example, find all the caterer licensees in Azusa.

Washington State law now bans employer access to the credit reports of employees or potential employees unless such information is substantially related to the individual’s current or potential job responsibilities. An exception is made if the employer has a “reasonable cause to believe” that the employee “has engaged in specific activity that constitutes a violation of law.”

Missouri private investigators are poised to receive the stamp of legitimacy with the establishment of the Board of Private Investigator Examiners, which will license and regulate private investigators. The bill is awaiting the governor’s signature, which is expected this summer. The Missouri Association of Private Investigators has worked diligently to secure state level licensing and soon they’ll be able to join the majority of states that license PIs.

New regulations for Indiana private investigators will go into effect July 1, including the replacement of the term “private detective” with “private investigator”.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court will decide whether property assessment databases created on behalf of municipalities by private companies are a public records.

Legislation introduced in Pennsylvania would make it a crime to obtain, sell or receive phone records of state residents without their authorization.

The Federal Communications Commission has issued new rules related to the disclosure of the personal telephone records of consumers. There are some specific new requirements for the carriers:

- Carriers are prohibited from releasing a customer’s phone call records when a customer calls the carrier except when the customer provides a password.

- Carriers are required to notify the customer when their password is changed

- Carriers must obtain explicit consent from a customer before disclosing a customer’s proprietary network information to a carrier’s joint venture partners or independent contractors

Read the full order and Commissioner comments.

The Federal Trade Commission has sought a permanent injunction against Action Research Group and Eye In the Sky Investigations for obtaining and selling to third parties confidential customer phone records in violation of the FTC Act prohibiting deceptive acts.
Federal Trade Commission, Plaintiff, v. Action Research Group, Inc., Joseph Depante, Matthew Depante, Bryan Wagner, Cassandra Selvage, and Eye in the Sky Investigations, Inc., Defendants. (United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida Orlando Division)

Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission is getting resistance from telephone companies over proposed rules requiring that customers use a password to access their account information and that the companies get a customer’s permission before they release information for telemarketing.

The Justice Department is objecting to two of the FCC proposals.

The first would tell phone companies to destroy customer records as soon as the records no longer are needed for legitimate business purposes. The government wants the records preserved for possible use in criminal investigations.

Secondly, the two departments want phone companies to notify law enforcement officials first, before customers, when customers’ private billing information has been disclosed improperly.

You would never think that a law would be needed to video tape on your own property, but an online news article reports a NH Legislator wants to make sure the law is clear.

A Nashua man was actually arrested after his home security camera made video and audio recordings of detectives who had come looking for his teenage son. Felony wiretapping charges against him were later dropped.

Rep. Dudley Dumaine and five other sponsors introduced House Bill 97, which would add an exception to the state’s wiretapping law, letting property owners record their own premises, with or without warning.

It may soon become a federal crime to obtain a person’s telephone records. The Senate made that possible Friday night when they approved legislation similar to a bill passed by the House.

The Senate bill increases the proposed fine to $500,000 and includes imprisonment up to 10 years in cases involving domestic abuse. The penalties can even be greater if classified as a special circumstance. The bill also details penalties and prison time for anyone who buys or sells the deceptively acquired phone records. The caveat is that those involved must know the records were obtained deceptively.

This legislation specifically addresses the act of ‘pretexting’ to obtain a person’s telephone records without permission.

“My main concern is that it is still not clear how the term ‘telephone records’ will be defined. Will this term mean toll records, name and address, or any other information maintained by the phone company?” Jimmie Mesis, PI Magazine Editor-in-Chief

This definition will certainly become much clearer before it heads to the Oval Office for the President’s signature.

As expected, there is an exemption for law enforcement. However, there is also an exemption for private detectives, but only if they are hired to acquire the confidential records by law enforcement.

More information on this topic will be featured in the upcoming issue of PI Magazine You can find more details on this bill by clicking here.

The National Guardianship Association is a voluntary organization of court appointed guardians and conservators.

A guardian is:

An individual or organization named by order of the court to exercise any or all powers and rights over the person and/or the estate of an individual. The term includes conservators and certified private or public fiduciaries. All guardians are accountable to the court.

A search of the database of members by state or city returns a list with names, addresses, Web sites, emails and whether the affiliation is as a professional or a volunteer.

California trustees and professional conservators and guardians are included in the Statewide Registry of Private Conservators, Guardians and Trustees, searchable by partial name or location. Some registrants list extensive biographical, educational and employment data.

This resource is a good example of the “invisible Web“, the portion of Web sites that can’t be found through search engines, no matter how many ways you formulate a search query. Various guesstimates are that 25-50 percent of the Web is beyond the reach of the search engines.

Read a brief tutorial on reaching into the deep Web.

A Concord Monitor online article is reporting that the New Hampshire State Supreme Court has upheld a Concord woman’s stalking petition against Brian Blackden, a local private investigator, partly because he refused to tell the court why he’d been hired to follow the woman.

In an unanimous decision, the justices ruled that the private investigator’s unwillingness to reveal his reasons for following the woman last year made it impossible for the trial judge, or them, to determine whether Blackden had a legitimate purpose to surveil the woman.

This ruling is very important to private investigators through out the United States. While other states do exempt private investigators, New Hampshire does not, the court ruled. To be exempt, Blackden needed to show his purpose in following the woman was lawful and legitimate.

“(Blackden) contends that he met this burden of proof by testifying that he secretly followed (Miller) in his capacity as a licensed private detective,” the court wrote. “We disagree.”