In re-launching the inquiry into carriers' data privacy and security practices, the FCC argues that not informing customers about the software or its data practices may have violated the carriers' responsibility pursuant to Section 222 of the Communications Act of 1934 to protect customer data "that is made available to a carrier solely by virtue of the carrier-customer relationship." The law allows such data to be used only in "limited circumstances," a term which is not defined in Section 222. It appears that one of the goals of the renewed inquiry is for the FCC to define the scope of the "limited circumstances."
As reported by Dan Or-Hof, Manager of the Information Technology, Internet and Copyright group at the Israeli law firm of Pearl Cohen Zedek & Latzer, in a first of its kind decision, the Tel-Aviv district court ruled on November 30, 2010 that a subscriber of cellular services does not have a general right to have his phone records deleted.
The United States Supreme Court issued its decision today in City of Ontario, California v. Quon, ruling that a public employer's examination of an employee's personal text messages on a government-issued pager did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Justice Kennedy's opinion for the Court remarked that a review of messages on an employer-provided device would similarly be regarded as "reasonable and normal in the private-employer context."