This phrase refers to that very telling and personal set of data you create every time you make a phone call. The data includes time, length, and destination of call and establishes calling patterns that could be very useful to marketers. Traditionally CPNI has been strongly protected under the law for consumer privacy reasons. If competition is to enter the market, however, exclusive use of this data by the LEC puts other players at a tremendous disadvantage when trying to woo customers. The Act requires written permission from the customer before a carrier can use the CPNI for anything other than delivering service.
Consumer advocates support the written permission approach.
This rulemaking appears to open the possibilities for a clear change in the traditional premise of the law - in order to satisfy industry's data jones. Personal behavior data, such as the calls you make or the books you check out of the library, was once seen as extremely confidential. In kinder, gentler days the organizations that collected that data were required to protect it on behalf of the customer. Since the marketing industry's discovery of electronic databases, however, all that has changed. It seems everyone who brushes by us tries to accumulate as much data as possible.