WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass) and Joe Barton (R-Texas), Co-Chairmen of the House Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, yesterday sent letters to the CEOs of the four major U.S. wireless carriers – AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile – querying them about their data collection, storage and disclosure practices. A recent The New York Times story entitled, “It’s Tracking Your Every Move and You May Not Even Know” reported that a German mobile phone company tracked the locations and destinations of one of its customers, including latitude and longitude coordinates. In particular, the letters ask about the companies’ compliance with Section 222 of the Communications Act, a provision that Rep. Markey authored, that requires companies to get express authorization from their customers for use, disclosure or access to location information for commercial purposes.
 
“Location, location, location may be the favored currency of the real estate industry but it is sensitive information for mobile phone users that must be safeguarded,” said Rep. Markey. “Collecting, storing and disclosing a consumer's exact whereabouts for commercial purposes without their express permission is unacceptable and violates current law. The new telecommunications marketing catchphrase should not be ‘Can You Find Me Now?’ if consumers don’t want a mobile minder following their every move.”
 
“This case gets to the root concerns about privacy in a digital age,” said Rep. Barton. “Companies have access to basic information about us from bank accounts to – as this case proves - our exact location. It’s like a real world version of the game 'Where’s Waldo?' Hundreds of millions of us are carrying cell phones right now – Are we being tracked? And if so, why don’t we know it? We have some serious questions for America’s wireless companies and we hope they will provide us with prompt, truthful answers.”
 
In the letters, Reps. Barton and Markey asked the wireless companies to respond to questions that include:
 

• What personally identifiable information does your company collect from your customers?
• How is this information collected (i.e., initial sign-up process, usage of mobile phone, etc.)?
• Other than pinpointing a customer’s location for purposes of identifying the strongest signal, does your company use any other mechanisms for determining the location of a customer’s mobile phone, such as how frequently the customer checks her email?  If yes, what are these mechanisms and what is the purpose of each of them?
• How does your company use customer’s personally identifiable information? Does your company rent or sell the information?  Does your company use personally identifiable information for marketing purposes?

 
Full copies of the four letters can be found here: AT&T  Sprint  Verizon  T-Mobile .
 
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