The FCC is planning an ID mandate that would prevent the use of anonymous payphones

The National Network to End Domestic Violence reported many concerns and a list of what the FCC may need to collect. The proposal “asks whether service providers should abandon or focus on addresses, shared office space, PO boxes, and mail services, and whether service providers should rely on customer ‘red flags’ to identify suspicious customers,” the group said. “While these questions arise in the context of fraud prevention, they also include behaviors that survivors routinely use to protect themselves from being targeted or harmed by abusers.”

The request “asks whether service providers must collect information provided by the government, verify the information using public databases; consumer reporting agencies; financial institutions; and commercial records, and keep those records for four years after the customer relationship ends,” the group said.

People fleeing domestic violence “may be living in an apartment, a temporary home, a hotel, a car, a friend’s room, or other places where they cannot disclose,” the group said. “Many rely on privacy protection programs (ACPs), government programs that provide survivors with a legal replacement address and mailing precisely because revealing their home address could expose them to new violence.”

“Bad on everyone’s privacy”

Victims often move and need to set up new email accounts and phone numbers, the FCC was told. While the National Network to End Domestic Violence’s focus is on survivors of domestic violence, the group said similar concerns about the FCC’s plan “have been raised by privacy advocates and civil rights groups.”

Eric Null, director of the Privacy & Data Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology, he told 404 Media Recently to “deal with the problem of illegal robocalls, the FCC has unfortunately planned to force every wireless subscriber in the country to give up their privacy and give up personal information before receiving or renewing a wireless cable.