The phone rings. You answer it. Should you know who is calling before you pick up the receiver? Or would that violate the caller`s privacy?
That issue is before the Illinois Commerce Commission. It comes in the form of a service called Caller ID, which Illinois Bell Telephone Co. and Centel Corp. want to offer.
Caller ID takes advantage of Automatic Number Identification, commonly called ANI, a technology now being made a part of phone networks nationwide.
ANI carries your number with each call as you place it. Computers can use ANI to offer better service, putting records in front of an operator as they answer a call. But business also can use ANI to build databases on customers, which might be sold without their knowledge or consent.
ANI already is being used in this way. Telesphere Communications Inc. of Oak Brook links ANI data from 800- and 900-number calls with consumer databases from Claritas Corp. of Arlington, Va. Sprint Gateways, a unit of US Sprint Corp. in Overland Park, Kan., links ANI data to databases from Donnelley Marketing, a unit of Dun & Bradstreet Inc., New York City.
ANI also is at the heart of the Enhanced 911 services now being offered in many localities. With E-911, as the service is called, police can rush to your aid even if a heart attack keeps you from talking or a burglar scares you into silence. But anonymous tipsters may no longer feel protected when they call police.
If your phone is equipped with a display that picks up ANI information, and you contract with your phone company for the service, you have Caller ID. But because Caller ID has positive and negative implications, it has moved from the realm of technology to politics.
Illinois Bell and Centel, the two phone companies serving the Chicago area, disagree on how to offer Caller ID.
Centel, with 178,000 lines statewide, wants to give callers the free option of blocking their numbers from going out on each call. Illinois Bell, with 5.2 million lines statewide, wants to offer Caller ID without blocking.
The Illinois Commerce Commission will consider both requests together, spokesman David Farrell said. A hearing examiner`s proposal is expected in mid-August, with the commission`s final decision due a few months later. Anyone is free to write the ICC chief clerk`s office, Farrell said, and all letters will go into a public file.
Centel spokesman Bill White said the decision to request free blocking was based on ”corporate philosophy.” Centel offers Caller ID, with blocking, in Las Vegas, he said, noting that 5 percent of customers there have bought Caller ID, at about $5 a month, while 2 percent pay to have blocks put on all calls from their lines.
Centel, serving parts of northwest Chicago and its suburbs and parts of central and western Illinois, offers CLASS services, other services made possible by ANI.
One is Automatic CallBack, which saves numbers at a phone switch and lets you call the last number to have dialed you. It costs $2.75 a month for residences, $3.75 a month for businesses. Call Trace can, for $4 a call, report an abusive caller to police, said Bill Hart, spokesman for Central Telephone Co. of Illinois, Des Plaines, a Centel subsidiary.
Illinois Bell also offers Automatic CallBack, at $3.60 a month for residences and businesses, and all other CLASS services except Call Trace, spokeswoman Laura Littel said. ”We have to work out pricing (of Call Trace), whether it will be by subscription or per-call.”
Meanwhile, Illinois Bell is working to get non-blocked Caller ID approved. Littel cited the example of New Jersey, which offers Caller ID without blocking, and said, ”We feel that blocking dilutes the benefits” of Caller ID. Besides, she asked, ”Why does someone want to call and remain anonymous?”
Many people do, according to Jane Whicher, staff counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. The ACLU is intervening against Illinois Bell`s petition, but for Centel`s.
”Illinois Bell admits there are phone calls people make where there`s a legitimate reason to keep the number confidential,” Whicher said. ”Similar concerns are raised by all types of professionals who work from home and don`t want to release their numbers. Psychiatrists, social workers, parents who want to contact a problem child without leaving their number-it`s all the same problem.”
The answer to obscene or harassing calls, Whicher added, is to use Call Trace. ”Call Trace creates a record admissible in court, and you can file that with the police right away. It`s hard evidence and difficult to refute.
”We think Centel has acted responsibly. It realizes the privacy interest in (people`s) phone numbers, and it`s allowing free call blocking. Centel is also making Call Trace available.”
Illinois Bell hasn`t asked for permission to make Call Trace available, but Littel said it probably will.
”By offering unpublished phone numbers Bell acknowledges there are people who want to control who gets their phone numbers,” Whicher said. ”For them now to argue that people don`t have an expectation of privacy is ridiculous.”
But more than half of those who have bought Caller ID in New Jersey have unlisted numbers, Littel countered, ”giving them a second line of defense against intrusion.”
But ”Caller ID was not developed so it would enhance the privacy of your home telephone, or let people confront obscene callers,” Whicher said. ”It was developed for commercial purposes. It lets marketers add a phone number to their growing databases of information.”
Last year, the Illinois House voted down a bill from state Rep. Tom Homer (D-Canton) that would have required blocking on Caller ID. Homer plans to reintroduce the bill this year, as the laws regulating telecommunications are re-enacted under Illinois` Sunset Laws, which require re-enactment of regulating laws periodically.
”If someone with Caller ID desires not to receive calls that are blocked, there`s the capability to keep the phone from ringing,” Homer said. And he agrees that it is really a business issue.
”The telemarketing industry wants to develop phone lists and address lists of prospects, which can be sold to other companies. Someone making a call to a business may unknowingly get onto several different lists.”
The issue has reached the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C., in the form of a citizen`s request for national regulation on Caller ID. ”We have to make a recommendation to the full commission on what to do,” said Jim Schlichting, chief of the agency`s policy division.
Schlichting could propose national rulings on Caller ID, or pass on the issue. Comments, mainly from phone companies, have recommended that the issue be left to the states. Even if he proposes a rule, final action might not take place for a year, Schlicting said. And it always could be overriden by Congress.
Small businesses will be able to use Caller ID with a product like Caller ID+Plus, from Rochelle Communications Inc., Austin, Texas. This $249 hardware and software product, first shipped last month, lets any PC owner create a database of Caller ID numbers, or link it to another database.
Rochelle President Gilbert Amine noted that California has enacted a law similar to Homer`s bill. He believes Centel is taking the right approach.
”The privacy issue is very important. Any new technology raises privacy issues, which must be dealt with,” she said, adding that it is important to protect public interest groups.
Amine also supports moves to prevent telemarketers from creating or reselling lists and consumer profiles based on Caller ID.
Ellis Hill, president of Research First Consulting Inc., Birmingham, Ala., which specializes in phone research, estimated from a study that 776,000 people in Illinois could be using Caller ID by the end of 1994, bringing in $65 million to the phone companies and $122 million to firms that make phones to display Caller ID information.
”Our research indicates people are skeptical of Caller ID at first,” he said, adding that ”in market trials, the positive aspects overwhelm the negative.”
Businesses also benefit, Hill added. ”Domino`s Pizza is using it to speed the efficiency of its delivery system, and to make sure the person calling is actually ordering,” he said. ”They lost $4.5 million a year in wasted pizza from crank calls. Taxi companies can use the technology to verify that someone calling a cab is picked up where they say they are.”
While Hill favors per-call blocking, however, he doesn`t like the idea of blocking Caller ID on a per-line basis, as Centel offers in Las Vegas. ”That would degrade the value of the service,” he said.
”There are many business uses of that number (obtained from Caller ID), which are good for consumers. You can do a faster lookup of information. You`re able to call people back if they can`t reach an agent (on their call), and handle calls more efficiently,” said David Allgatter, an analyst for the Dataquest Group, San Jose, Calif., a computer industry market research firm.
In large call-handling centers, Allgatter estimated that ANI systems costing $1.5 million can pay for themselves in 9 to 15 months.
It may be too early to predict the outcome of the Caller ID battle in Illinois or nationwide. But what is clear is that it is becoming intense, as technology creates issues never dealt with before.
