FCC Proposes Broadband Consumer Privacy Rules

The Federal Communications Commission adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that proposes to establish privacy guidelines for broadband Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The proposal is designed to ensure broadband customers have meaningful choice, greater transparency and strong security protections for their personal information collected by ISPs.

It proposes rules that would give broadband customers the tools they need to
make informed decisions about how their information is used by their ISPs and whether and for what purposes their ISPs may share their customers’ information with third parties. To provide consumers more control over the use of their personal information – and enforce the broadband provider’s responsibility to safeguard such data – the NPRM separates the use and sharing of information into three categories, and proposes adoption of clear guidance for both ISPs and customers about the transparency, choice and security requirements for customers’ personal information:

Consent Inherent in Customer Decision to Purchase ISP’s Services: Customer data necessary to provide broadband services and for marketing the type of broadband service purchased by a customer – and for certain other purposes consistent with customer expectations, such as contacting public safety – would require no additional customer consent beyond the creation of the customer-ISP relationship.
Opt-out: Broadband providers would be allowed to use customer data for the purposes of marketing other communications-related services and to share customer data with their affiliates that provide communications-related services for the purposes of marketing such services unless the customer affirmatively opts out.
Opt-in: All other uses and sharing of consumer data would require express, affirmative “opt-in” consent from customers.