CPNI Declaratory Ruling Emerging as First Major Contentious Order Under Clyburn
A declaratory order saying information stored on mobile phones is subject to the FCC’s rules for protecting customer proprietary network information (CPNI) could be the first major item under acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn that proves controversial enough to split the three-member commission. Commissioner Ajit Pai has reservations about the order, as circulated originally by former Chairman Julius Genachowski May 17, and is looking for changes, industry and FCC officials said. While it’s too early in negotiations to know whether Pai will dissent, a no vote is possible, officials said.
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Last year carriers, led by CTIA, strongly opposed regulation of data on mobile phones. No ex partes have been filed on industry meetings at the FCC on the item in recent weeks, though FCC officials say they're starting to hear from concerned carriers. Clyburn indicated last week the draft declaratory ruling will get a vote at the commission’s June 27 meeting, her first as acting head of the agency (CD June 6 p1). The ruling would make clear that the CPNI rules apply to information collected on a device in the same way that they apply to information that carriers collect in other ways, agency officials said last week.
The only one ex parte filing on the issue that has shown up on the FCC’s electronic filing system since Genachowski circulated the draft reported on a meeting between CTIA Assistant Vice President Krista Witanowski and various FCC officials, including Louis Peraertz, an aide to Clyburn (CD June 4 p13).
"Regulating data stored on mobile devices in today’s ‘Open Internet’ environment would be ineffective and counterproductive,” CTIA said in a filing in July 2012 (http://bit.ly/1bpd98F). “Wireless carriers no longer control -- or even know -- the third parties that create software and install it on wireless devices or the data associated with these applications. Wireless carriers today are not gatekeepers for wireless customers.”