FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs

# FCC Wants to Kill Burner Phones By Forcing Telecoms to Get All Customers’ IDs Source: [https://www.404media.co/fcc-wants-to-kill-burner-phones-by-forcing-telecoms-to-get-all-customers-ids/](https://www.404media.co/fcc-wants-to-kill-burner-phones-by-forcing-telecoms-to-get-all-customers-ids/) The Federal Communications Commission \(FCC\) wants to make it effectively impossible for people to buy what many call burner phones—a phone not explicitly linked to your identity at the point of purchase—which would impact privacy\-conscious people, to domestic abuse survivors, to journalists, and many more\. The FCC plans to do this by legally forcing the country’s telecoms to store a wealth of personal information about essentially all phone customers, including a government issued identification number and their physical address, alarming privacy advocates and civil rights activists who compare the measures to those from authoritarian countries where it can be difficult to buy a mobile phone plan without giving up your identity\. The proposed change would drastically shake up how people obtain phone plans in the U\.S\., and have all sorts of privacy and cybersecurity knock\-on effects\. The FCC is proposing the data collection partly as a way to combat scammers, with telecoms being required to collect other information on business and foreign customers like the intended use case of their bulk phone plan purchase and their IP address\. But the changes would mean telecoms collect data on all new and renewing customers, and the FCC provides a long list of other things that the collected data could help authorities with\. 💡 ****Do you know anything else about this proposed change? I would love to hear from you\. Using a non\-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph\.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media\.co\.**** “For decades, civil libertarians have looked overseas at authoritarian countries where the government requires people to register to get a mobile phone to ensure they can be tracked\. We never thought that would happen here,” Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union’s \(ACLU\) Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project told 404 Media in an email\. “But make no mistake: with this rulemaking, the government is contemplating taking away people’s ability to get a burner phone, which will hurt low\-income people, domestic violence victims, and anyone else who cares about their privacy\.” ## This post is for paid members only Become a paid member for unlimited ad\-free access to articles, bonus podcast content, and more\. [Subscribe](https://www.404media.co/membership/) ## Sign up for free access to this post Free members get access to posts like this one along with an email round\-up of our week's stories\. [Subscribe](https://www.404media.co/signup/) Already have an account?[Sign in](https://www.404media.co/signin/)