FCC plan would require IDs from all US phone customers, ending burner phones

The US Federal Communications Commission is proposing rules that would require telecom carriers to collect and store personal data from essentially every phone customer, including a government-issued identification number and a physical address. The change, reported by 404 Media, would make it effectively impossible to buy what are commonly called burner phones — handsets that are not explicitly linked to a buyer's identity at the point of purchase.

What carriers would have to collect

The requirement would cover all new customers as well as existing subscribers renewing their service. Carriers would also have to gather additional details on business and foreign customers, such as the stated purpose of a bulk phone-plan purchase and the customer's IP address. The FCC presents the data collection partly as a way to fight scammers who rely on hard-to-trace numbers; the agency also lists a long series of other purposes that the stored information could serve for authorities.

Who would be affected

Privacy advocates and civil rights groups say the practical effect would be to end anonymous mobile service in the United States. That matters for privacy-conscious users, but also for people who depend on untraceable numbers: domestic abuse survivors, journalists protecting their sources, and low-income customers who buy prepaid phones without a contract. Critics compare the approach to rules in authoritarian countries, where registering an identity document is a condition for getting a mobile plan so the state can track subscribers.

Pushback from civil liberties groups

Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told 404 Media that the proposal breaks sharply with US practice. “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,” he said.

“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.”