Your Telephone

The Leak: Talking to telemarketers. Every time you or someone in your home (like your chatty six-year-old) speaks to one, there’s an increased likelihood of unintentionally revealing even more personal information.
The Plug: Register your phone numbers on the FTC’s Do Not Call list. Go to www.donotcall.gov, or call 888-382-1222 from the number you want to register. (If you register through the website, be sure to click on a link in the confirmation e-mail you receive.) Most telemarketers should stop calling once you’ve been in the registry for 31 days. Charities and companies you already have a relationship with are still allowed to call, though. Mark your (long-range) calendar — you must reregister your numbers every five years.

The Leak: Caller ID. Yes, it’s nice to see who’s calling you, but you may not want everyone you call to have such easy access to your name and number.
The Plug: In some states, you can sign up for “per-line blocking,” which means your number will be blocked every time you make a call from a given phone line (to unblock, dial *82). If this isn’t an option where you live, you can use per-call blocking; just dial *67 before dialing and your number won’t be transmitted. The phone company can’t charge you for using a caller ID–blocking service. If you’re calling a toll-free number, however, the party you’re calling pays for the call and is therefore permitted to identify your phone number through a system called Automatic Number Identification (ANI). However, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules limit the way parties with toll-free numbers can distribute and use this information. For privacy, Privacy Rights founder Beth Givens recommends having an unlisted number or listing your number but not your address.

The Leak: The phone company knows your number — as well as the numbers you call, how often you call them, when and how you use your phone, what services you subscribe to, and other sensitive personal information. And if you authorize it (or fail to prohibit it), the company can distribute this information to third parties for marketing purposes.
The Plug: Read your phone bill and any other notices you receive from the company, and call if it’s not clear how to opt out of sharing personal information. Under federal law, information about your telephone use — known as customer proprietary network information, or CPNI — must be protected. Specifically, the company must obtain your approval to use, or to share with affiliates or third parties, CPNI for the marketing of services or products you don’t already receive. (Without approval, though, it may use the information to remind you how great the services you already receive are.) There are two ways a company obtains customer approval: by sending a notice telling you it will use or share CPNI for marketing unless you tell it not to, and by asking you to “opt in” for such information sharing. The rules concerning CPNI apply to all telephone companies — local, long-distance, and cellular. To learn more about regulation of the phone industry, go to www.fcc.gov/cgb or call 888-225-5322.