Lightbridge Inc. successfully petitioned the California Public Utilities Commission to overturn a long-standing rule that forbids California wireless carriers to share customer information.
The new ruling, said Lightbridge, allows wireless carriers immediately to begin sharing negative customer-credit data. Lightbridge petitioned the CPUC to overturn the rule in connection with its ProFile product, which is a nationwide database that provides a customer’s history of accounts receivable write-offs and service shut-offs to enable online pre-screening of potentially fraudulent wireless subscribers.
Until now, said the company, the database has contained information from every state except California, which was the only state that did not allow wireless carriers to establish an inter-carrier credit check system to aid in combating subscription fraud. Michelle Wheeler, Lightbridge’s product marketing manager for fraud, said the ruling is important because California represents about 14 percent of the potential wireless subscriber base in the United States.
Lightbridge was joined in its petition, filed April 24, by AirTouch Cellular Inc., Pacific Bell Mobile Services, Sprint Spectrum L.P. and Cox Communications PCS. AT&T Wireless Inc. also supported the measure, said Lightbridge.
In its ruling, the CPUC said it granted Lightbridge’s request because it “will serve to reduce the (commercial mobile radio service) providers’ costs for uncollectible accounts and thereby protect California customers who ultimately bear the consequences of write-offs.”
A condition of the ruling restricts use of the customer-credit data to assessing the credit worthiness of new subscribers, establishing the amount of the deposit a CMRS provider may require of a new customer and tracking the whereabouts of write-off perpetrators, said the commission. Companies may not use the shared customer-credit data as a basis for denial of service, continued the commission. “Rather, if a customer’s credit history shows a history of write-off’s, the CMRS providers must provide service to the customer if the customer posts a deposit that is reasonably related to the credit risk associated with that customer.”
Additional privacy considerations were attached to the ruling, including that providers only can submit credit data for customers who have a history of credit problems with one or more of the CMRS providers, and that the carriers must provide a written description of how it handles the customer’s credit information and a disclosure of how the information might be used or transferred that would not be obvious to the customer. Credit-check reports also must not contain the password for access to the ProFile system to protect against unauthorized access.
“We expect the applicants to take all measures necessary to protect the privacy of their subscribers’ credit data in accordance with both the letter and spirit of this decision,” said the commission. “If subscribers’ credit data released by the CMRS providers to Lightbridge is used for any purpose other than that authorized by this decision, we intend to hold the applicants accountable via the imposition of penalties levied pursuant to Part 1, Chapter 11 of the PU Code and other appropriate remedies.”
Lightbridge’s ProFile system is part of its Telesto customer acquisition product, which includes real-time transaction processing, pre-qualification and subscription- fraud-prevention functions.
