I am writing in reference to S-2030, introduced by Senator Kohl, which would require telephone companies offering incoming calling line identification service (Caller ID) to provide blocking capability to customers who do not want their numbers to be displayed to call recipients having the service. I am very concerned about any legislation which would prevent me from knowing who is calling me. I am writing you both as a citizen consumer activist on telecommunications issues and as an average American, who has had to put up with my share of unwanted calls. I believe that a full-scale blocking feature is akin to using a sledge hammer to kill an ant. Any legitimate privacy interests can be addressed in less drastic ways, as I outlined in my testimony to the D.C. Public Service Commission and presented in more detail in the enclosed piece. There are many options for preserving privacy without destroying the main purpose of Caller ID. If a worst-case scenario should occur, where the only legislative compromise is a form of blocking, it should be a package where:(1) The caller blocks on a call-by-call basis, (2) The blocking is limited to calls from residential subscribers to business and government subscribers, (3) The recipient, at will, can prevent blocked calls from even causing his or her phone to ring, and, most importantly, (4) the blocking would be only of the last four digits of the number. (Area code and exchange would continue to be available for display.) If this proposed legislation comes before you either in committee or on the floor in its present form, I hope you will vote against it. If preventing its passage becomes a lost cause, I hope you will work to minimize its impact to the residential subscriber, as each number blocked represents a mitigation of the value of the Caller ID service. I suggest that any legislation include added penalties for anyone convicted of using a blocked number to place obscene or harassing calls, or in connection with the commission of other crimes. I ask you and staff to study seriously the alternatives to blocking that can protect any valid privacy rights of callers without compromising the rights of the millions of people who have had to put up with unwanted sales calls, obscene and harassing calls, and calls from "just someone I don't feel like talking to right now." If there are public hearings on the issue, I hope the lineup will include consumer interests on both sides of the issue. I request your assistance in getting my point of view, as expressed in the enclosure, into the record. I believe there has been an imbalance in the media portraying self-proclaimed defenders of the privacy of those with unpublished numbers versus phone companies allegedly trying to destroy any last vestiges of privacy. I find that most of the people I know feel as I do that the caller's privacy concerns must be secondary to those of the recipient -- as the caller always has the choice not to place the call in the first place. If you or your staff have any questions, please feel free to write or give me a call at 703-237-9898. Sincerely, 445. Mater Earl F. Mellor (255) 1 CALLER ID? FULL SPEED AHEAD! During the 25 years that I have had telephone service, I have been awaiting the day that telephone switching technology would enable me to find out who is calling, so I could make the choice to answer the phone, in much the same way that I can now look out my window to know who is knocking on my door and can choose whether or not to answer. Every time the telephone company has called me offering one or another optional service (some of dubious value), I have said, "No thank you; but if you will provide a service where I can see the number of whoever is calling me while the phone is ringing, I want to be the first to get it." Finally, the C&P Telephone Company has begun to offer this electronic peephole; but now there are cries of protest from those who are concerned only about the privacy rights of the caller not the person receiving the call. Since a caller usually knows what number he or she is dialing, Caller ID merely puts the recipient on a level playing field. I view the service as a combination of consumer labeling, countervailing power, freedom of choice, and the enhancement of privacy. I believe it's everyone's right to know the origination point of an incoming call. Although Caller ID's detractors view the service as an Orwellian venture, I view it as telephone glasnost. Regarding privacy, the telephone companies are not seeking, nor should they seek, to divulge call or caller information to third parties. Such divulging would be a violation of Section 705 of the Communications Act of 1934 (as amended). As far as unpublished numbers are concerned, I feel that if someone wants both to call me and for me not to know his or her number, either he or she really has no business calling me or should have to cough up a quarter to use a public phone. It's the height of arrogance for one to expect he or she should be able to call someone who cannot call back! The recipient should have no less right to privacy than the caller. Although answering machines provide for some screening of calls, many callers immediately hang up when a machine answers because they either assume no one is home, are too shy to make a recording, or simply dislike answering machines. To accommodate the concerns of those who feel uneasy about the service, I suggest the telcos provide a special number for subscribers to call, where they could key in any phone number, and get a status report on whether that number is equipped with Caller ID. Directory listings could also indicate this with an appropriate symbol; or an intercept option could be made available to alert those desiring it to hold an outgoing call and give the caller a recording if the called number has Caller ID. The caller could press "Y" (9) to let the call go through or press "N" (6) to quit and seek a nearby pay phone. - Another low-cost way to accommodate those who have some real or imagined privacy interest, and want to call everyone but not accept return calls is to take advantage of an option marketed by the Bell Atlantic companies as IdentaRing. This lets one have two or three numbers, each with its own distinctive ring, for single-line service. Caller ID reveals only the primary (single-ring) number to the recipient -- a number the caller could choose not to answer while he or she could answer only calls coming in on a secondary (e.g., doublering) number given to selected individuals. À more costly option is to have two telephone lines one for incoming calls, one for outgoing calls only, with the bell turned off. Many of those most concerned about privacy certainly can afford far more than two phone lines. Regardless of these and other possible solutions, in most cases the privacy issue holds no more water than a would-be bank robber's argument against cameras in banks or a speeder's protest of police radar. I suspect that once the full value of Caller ID is realized by most people, requests for unpublished numbers will precipitously decline. After all, I would hope that the primary purpose of such numbers is to eliminate unwanted calls. If one is concerned about revealing his or her address, a street address need not be part of the listing. It need only read 2 Washington D.C., Arlington, Fairfax, etc.; hence, a crisscross directory could not be used to find one's street address. In those few cases where there are legitimate reasons for protecting identities (for example, a client calling home from a shelter for abused spouses or a psychiatrist calling patients from home), calls could be switched through a third-number call diverter or switchboard. The recipient's line identifier would perhaps show the main number for city hall or the county courthouse in the first example, and the number of the doctor's office or the local medical paging service in the second one. In the cases of social workers, parole officers, undercover police, and similar wage and salary workers who may be required to make calls from home as part of the job, the employers should provide any necessary call diverting equipment or service (or a second telephone line) to protect the personal home phone numbers of workers. Blocking should be done only as a last resort where a court or other public body determines on a number-by-number basis that there are genuine public safety or national security concerns. The second-most used opposition argument is that marketing firms will be able to build databases to enable them to better target their potential market. There are fears that one will be deluged with junk calls. Like it or not, recipients of calls to "800" numbers already get information on the calling number, since businesses with "800" service pay for the calls and can get itemized billing information just as everyone else does for his or her long distance calls. More and more companies selling a product now use an "800" number even for local callers, which means whether Caller ID is available or not, the big telemarketers will know one's number. Historically, when one orders a product by phone, not only are one's telephone number and address needed to process the order (to expedite shipping), but even more sensitive information is obtained to expedite payment one's credit card number which has yet greater links to databases. I wouldn't be surprised if many of those most concerned about the privacy implications of Caller ID, order merchandise or discuss sensitive financial and other personal information using cordless or, in some cases, even mobile telephones, where such sensitive data can be received by anyone who would want to do some real damage with the information. - The junk-call argument is further mitigated by sheer economics, as telemarketing is an expensive proposition. Marketers do not want to take a shotgun approach. They prefer to target precisely their prospective clientele. This means that if one's calls to "800" numbers or to regular numbers with Caller ID are primarily to computer software firms or vendors of stereo equipment, any database would reveal he or she is an unlikely target for zirconium bracelets or porcelain figurines of cows. Without such databases, everyone is at risk to receive a higher proportion of calls for products they don't want and a smaller proportion for those they do. The subject of telemarketing leads to other ways the Caller ID technology could benefit us. For example, the utility regulators could require the telephone companies to assign telephone solicitors (including the telcos' own marketing departments) numbers on special exchanges (akin to the 432 exchange used locally for mass in-calling) or have a flag (an extra character) attached to the information sent downstream. Subscribers would have the option of not answering calls from the special exchanges or those bearing the "solicitor" flag. Smart terminals could be programmed so one's phone wouldn't even ring for such calls. (There again goes the anti-database argument out the window!) Other flags could indicate whether the call is coming from a pay phone, from a government agency, etc. Subscribers should also be informed if a call is coming from a mobile phone, for there is a real privacy issue here. The recipient (as is now the case) may not know the call is on those public airwaves that anyone with the right scanner and a penchant to violate the Electronic Communications Privacy Act can monitor. In the other direction, Caller ID for mobile phones would enable the subscriber to avoid expensive air time charges for unwanted incoming calls. (For safety 3 reasons, Caller ID displays for mobile phones should use a voice synthesizer. This could also be provided for the visually impaired as well.) Another business-related criticism of Caller ID is that credit companies, taxi companies, delivery services, etc. could use the service to discriminate against those calling from socalled redlined areas, simply by not answering the telephone. It happens that in most cases, very poor neighborhoods are in the same exchange as more affluent ones. By the time the pizza store or the taxicab company looked up the full number in a crisscross directory to find out where in the exchange the caller is located (even assuming the telephone subscriber is listed in the directory with an address), the customer would have hung up (affluent or otherwise). Secondly, the technology employed in Caller ID would make it very easy for a properly authorized investigation of alleged discrimination to establish a pattern of which calls are answered and which ones are not in order to prove a case of the vendor refusing to answer incoming calls from particular neighborhoods. I find it strange that the self-proclaimed advocates of "privacy" did not take up arms when the very telemarketers they claim will abuse incoming line caller identification first got the service for their "800" numbers. Why are they complaining only after a service is now being offered to allow the "average Joe or Jane" the power to reject calls from those same telemarketers, or from the stranger making obscene calls, the obnoxious acquaintance, or the demanding relative, or even from someone hiding behind an unpublished number. Many people probably have a personal philosophy of never calling someone to whom they would not be willing to reveal their number, just as they would not wear a mask or a hood when they knock on someone's door or when doing business at the bank. This probably holds true even for those with unpublished numbers. It reflects a feeling that could be described as "If you stay off my line, I'll stay off yours." However, it appears those wanting their numbers blocked have a "do unto others what I don't want others to do unto me" philosophy. If the facts show that people with unpublished numbers are overrepresented among those who want to remain anonymous to whom they call, one might be curious if they also are overrepresented among those who make the types of calls that most of us don't want to receive in the first place. If the telephone companies are forced to provide blocking for people with unpublished numbers, I would hope that it would include four limitations: First, a customer would have to initiate the blocking process on a call-by-call basis by dialing a special blocking code possibly at a nominal per-call charge to discourage frivolous blocking, with the proceeds going to help provide local phone service to the lowincome elderly and disabled. Those with the blocking option should not also be permitted to have Caller ID on any line at that address. They should not be able to have things both ways! The plus side to blocking on a call-by-call basis is that the $100-plus per hour selfemployed psychiatrist who supposedly cannot afford a second number or a call diverter to call his or her patients from home without revealing a number, will still be able to call a cab without being considered a dead run and be able to order a pizza without being considered a false order or a robbery setup. Second, blocking availability should be limited to calls placed to business and government numbers not to other residential subscribers. Most of the privacy concerns, regardless of their validity, pertain to potential misuse of the phone numbers of residential subscribers by business and government. The ability to withhold one's number, on a call-by-call basis, to business and government numbers would address these concerns. Third, there should be a "double-block" option that one could activate or deactivate (via dialing a code) that would reject calls coming from a blocked number. Such a service would prevent the recipient's phone from ringing and would provide a recording stating the recipient does not accept anonymous calls. The caller would then have to redial with no blocking option if the call is to go through. Perhaps this could be part of the "Call Block" service marketed by Bell Atlantic. It allows one to block calls from up to six phone numbers. The customer should be allowed to designate incoming calls from any numbers indicated as "blocked" or "private" on the Caller ID display as one of the six. Fourth, and most important, only the last four digits should be blocked! This would enable the recipient to know the city, town, or general area of the call's origination, without revealing the full number. No one is going to dial up to 10,000 numbers to try to find out those final four digits, or put every square block of an exchange area under surveillance to find out one's address. In many cases, particularly in large metropolitan areas with hundreds of exchanges, the area code and exchange are enough to avoid many unwanted calls. That is, if you're expecting a call from a friend or relative whose number is on the "224" exchange and you don't feel like speaking to anyone else right now, and the display shows an incoming call from the "228" prefix, you know not to answer. -- as Caller ID should be viewed as one more way technology can serve us enhancements to both freedom of information and freedom of privacy. I see Caller ID as one of those conveniences that could add to the quality of telephone usage, to the same degree that Metro has done for transportation, flexitime for the job, UPC scanning for the supermarket checkout line (Remember the Big Brother scenarios ten years ago on this one!), and cable TV for information and entertainment. I think $6.50 a month is somewhat high; but I hope that if the telephone companies can add to their profits in offering the service, they'll have the incentive to move ahead more quickly to mate telephone and computer technology yet further. On a personal note, I ordered Caller ID on the very first day C&P announced its availability in my exchange. In addition, because I can now decide what calls I want to answer when I want to, I requested a listing in my name -- something I haven't had in nearly 20 years. Earl F. Mellor 973 North Longfellow Street Arlington, Virginia 22205-1637 Telephone (Home) 703-237-9898 |