|
HCS/SS/SCS/SBs 613, 1030, & 899 - This act creates the crime of knowingly obtaining, receiving, or selling telephone records without a customer?s consent. However, the act shall not preclude official actions of law enforcement, lawful use of the records to provide service, use of records pursuant to the Victims of Child Abuse Act of 1990, or emergency use of records by the government to prevent death or serious injury to a person. The act lays out penalties for such a violation; the crime is a felony that is punishable by a fine or imprisonment. The penalty for such crime increases based on the number of telephone records obtained, received, or sold. A telecommunications carrier or a customer is allowed to recover actual damages, illicit profits, and punitive damages from persons violating this act. There is a two-year statute of limitations on such civil actions. Under the act, telecommunications carriers that maintain telephone records shall establish reasonable procedures to protect against fraudulent disclosure of such records; reasonable procedures shall mean complying with the Customer Proprietary Network Information in Section 222 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended. The act does not create any new cause of action against telecommunications companies. The act adds telephone records to the forms of identification that can be used to commit identity theft. Provisions in the act are similar to SB 1030 and SB 899 (2006). MEGAN WORD
|