From comp.society.privacy Mon May 17 21:00:01 1993 Path: utcsri!utnut!torn!nott!bnrgate!bnr.co.uk!zaphod.axion.bt.co.uk!uknet!pipex!uunet!computer-privacy-request Date: Fri, 7 May 1993 19:26:26 GMT From: Carl M Kadie Newsgroups: comp.society.privacy Subject: [Newsbytes Editorial] Caller Line ID Message-ID: Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL Sender: comp-privacy@pica.army.mil Approved: comp-privacy@pica.army.mil X-Submissions-To: comp-privacy@pica.army.mil X-Administrivia-To: comp-privacy-request@pica.army.mil X-Computer-Privacy-Digest: Volume 2, Issue 041, Message 6 of 6 Lines: 142 Copyright 1992 by Newsbytes. Reposted with permission from the ClariNet Electronic Newspaper newsgroup clari.nb.telecom. For more info on ClariNet, write to info@clarinet.com or phone 1-800-USE-NETS. SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 APR 30 (NB) -- By Robert Jacobson. It may be too late to resuscitate the corpse, but the chorus of mourners crying crocodile tears for Caller ID has recently risen in volume. Are the telephone companies at it again? Probably not. But it's remarkable nonetheless how many supposedly well-informed commentators are still repeating the nonsense that characterized the campaign for Caller ID, ignorant still of the many reasons why the service doomed itself. Caller ID was the modern technological tragedy. Recently, Newsbytes ran an editorial lamenting the many regulations and restrictions imposed on Caller ID by state authorities which, taken together, nailed the coffin on the beast. The author, recited the arguments once more vocally advanced by the telephone companies -- arguments such as Caller ID would in some way protect the personal privacy of telephone customers. I don't agree. For more than three years, as a senior policy analyst with the California Legislature, I studied Caller ID and its implications for personal privacy. My conclusion: Caller ID would not protect personal privacy. Far from it -- the service was designed as a tool for direct marketers and its implementation, had it succeeded, would have seriously eroded personal privacy for every telephone customer. There's nothing mysterious about these conclusions. From its inception, Caller ID was heralded by the telephone companies as a marketer's dream, the ideal way to collect information about customers and others who might call businesses equipped with the appropriate technology. Every time a limitation was imposed on Caller ID, making it possible (for example) for customers to suppress the automatic transfer of their identifying data, the telcos protested that this would destroy the "value" of the service. By value they meant the desirability of the service for the purpose of collecting personal information. Why would the telephone companies take this line? I asked this question of many telephone executives; few could provide a persuasive rationale for privacy protection. On the contrary, the intention of the telephone companies, quite baldly stated on several occasions, was to move the telephone industry into the center of commerce. The personal telephone number, possibly the single most important artifact of information possessed by most Americans, is the closest thing we have to a national identity code (next to the Social Security number, whose use is increasingly limited as an identifier and certainly prohibited to commercial application). If Caller ID, whose value depends on the use of telephone numbers as identifiers, was a success, the telephone companies would become the nexus of commercial transactions. Their own vast collections of data regarding customer calling patterns would additionally become more valuable. In all, telephone companies would become the transactors of more personal information than any other entities. What a boon not only for the telco revenues but also for their power within the economy. The personal privacy angle came into being after the telcos realized that not everyone was sympathetic to this strategy. So a bogeyman was invented: the harrassing or crank caller, who "invaded" the sanctity of the home via the telephone. Caller ID would prevent this invidious individual from getting "in." Far from it: with Caller ID, the easy passage of personal information including telephone calls would _increase_ the number of _telemarketing_ calls the individual would receive, a far more troubling activity if the complaints our office got from telephone customers was any indication. And there were plenty of other ways to track down and punish harrassing callers, like Call Trace, which didn't require the surrender of one's telephone number. But the phone companies resisted these available, less onerous measures. In fact, Caller ID can be easily circumvented by simply using an unsuspecting friend's phone or a public phone to execute the communication. When the unknown number shows up on the Caller ID screen, how is the recipient to know it's the person who has been bothering them for so long? Call Trace is a better technology for this purpose. Police forces in California were not favorably disposed toward Caller ID, either. They worried that angry telephone customers who had received a noisome phone call would track down whomever's telephone number showed up on the device and blow that person away, whether or not the individual was culpable of the crime. The telephone company might even be held liable for culpability, something few telephone executives -- cozied by years of living under protective anti-liability tariffs -- might have given more thought. Finally, had the telco execs (who do not take advice kindly) thought about it, making every phone call a potential giving away of one's most personal information, via the telephone number, would have the effect of suppressing use of the telephone, just when the industry was pushing the phone as the most essential device for partaking of the Information Age. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face! What killed Caller ID, ultimately, wasn't the restrictions imposed by state regulators but business's lack of interest. Caller ID relied upon a high "take" by telemarketers, direct marketers, and other commercial institutions who wanted access to telephone numbers. They already get enough information from 800 and 900 numbers, since those calls are self-screened by customers who want to conduct some sort of business transaction. Caller ID promised a deluge of information that only the very biggest organizations could sift through and employ. And the bad press surrounding Caller ID discouraged those institutions from getting in too deep. A great sigh of relief has been breathed by abuse shelters, police organizations, health providers, and others whose employees and clients might be put at direct risk through the disclosure of the telephonic identities (and via these identities, addresses and daily routines). But the demise of Caller ID has a larger, ironic outcome: the telephone companies are unencumbered by this loser of a service as they begin to offer new types of information services, for which enthusiastic public use will be a business requirement. So don't cry for the telephone companies. They're better off for having faced principled criticism that contained the damage Caller ID might have done. The lobbyists and executives who ingenuously fought for the service, so far as I know, are all doing well and have received promotions to make mischief somewhere else. A fairly dangerous confrontation, between technology and privacy, has been averted. If anything is to be lamented, it's all the time and energy that went into a foolish enterprise, an endeavor without a future whose inspiration was right out of Orwell's 1984, presented with an undeservedly friendly face. We know now to be more aware of technologists bearing gifts. Editor's Note: Robert Jacobson, Ph.D., is former principal consultant/staff director of the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee, California Legislature, 1982-1989. (Robert Jacobson/19930430) -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =