The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has approved Senate bill 2389 (the current version starts on page 18), Protecting Consumer Phone Records Act, which will now be sent to the full Senate for consideration. The press release outlines the bill with the accepted amendments.

This bill makes it unlawful to obtain telephone customer information without that person’s approval. It adds civil remedies, and authority to both the FCC and the state regulatory bodies to enforce. Account holders may bring a civil action if they have been “caused harm as a result of their confidential proprietary network information being obtained…”

Telephone carriers are required to notify their customers when they become aware of “an incident in which customer proprietary network information relating to such customer was disclosed to someone other than the customer…”

This bill expands the Communications Act coverage to Voice over Internet Protocol and mandates an opt-in provision for any future wireless phone directory.