Ride the Lightning
Cybersecurity and Future of Law Practice Blog
by Sharon D. Nelson Esq., President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
Are the Cell Phone Companies Storing Your Private Data? Heck, Yes.
October 6, 2011
Every time we lecture about which cell phone companies hold what data and for how long, we have to offer a caveat – blink your eyes and the information may change.
Yesterday, I read an article about a document obtained by the ACLU from the Justice Department's cybercrime division. It is a one page document for law enforcement. Here's who keeps what among cell phone companies.
Verizon Wireless keeps information about which cell towers subscribers' phones connect to for a year. AT&T has kept that data since July of 2008.
Verizon keeps information for up to a year that can determine if a particular phone visited a particular website.
Sprint Nextel's Virgin Mobile brand keeps the content of text messages for three months and Verizon for 3-5 days. The other carriers do not keep text content but do keep records of who texted who for more than a year. AT&T keeps records of who texts who and when for up to seven years. Virgin Mobile keeps that data for 2-3 months.
While the carriers do not record phone calls, they do keep information about calls made and received for at least a year.
The ACLU is quite right – we have a right to know how long these companies keep our private data and which data they keep. Privacy in 2011 is increasingly a matter of wishful thinking – and it is bound to get worse.
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