Federal Communications Commission proposes fines on Amp’d Mobile

The FCC has proposed fining the mobile service provider Amp’d Mobile Inc. $100,000 for failing to protect the privacy of their customers.

This is the fourth such instance of the FCC proposing a fine against service providers this year. This fine is being proposed on the companies for failing to comply with rules requiring that consumer phone records be protected by internal safeguards.

Amp’d Mobile had assured the commission in a letter that they have adequate internal procedures to protect customer phone records. However, they did not provide any details.

This initiative has been started after several incidences of companies acquiring personal phone records by impersonating customers. Hewlett Packard has been one of the high profile cases of using this practice which has been named pretexting.

The US Congress has already outlawed the practice. The FCC added: “Consumers are increasingly concerned about the security of their sensitive, personal data that they must entrust to their various service providers, whether they are financial institutions or telephone companies.”

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