Single-Number Plan Raises Privacy Fears
A controversial technology under development by the communications industry that links Internet addresses with phone numbers has quietly picked up key government support as concern mounts among critics that the technology will broadly undermine privacy.
The technology, known as e-number, or ENUM, would link phone numbers to codes that computer servers use to route traffic on the Web. Proponents say the technology would improve communication for consumers and marketers alike.
The industry envisions a sophisticated electronic address book that would be able to direct messages to virtually any fax machine, computer or telephone, using a new 11-digit e-number. As a result, a fax could be sent to someone who lacked a fax machine but had an e-mail address. Likewise, cell phone users would only have to key in 11-digits to send e-mail, not a cumbersome alphanumeric address.
But privacy advocates fear the system could undermine online privacy and erode the security of the public phone system as well. They worry that the system would destroy a pillar of Internet privacy: the assumption by users that they enjoy anonymity in cyberspace.
The government’s endorsement of the technology, disclosed in interviews and outlined in an Aug. 21 letter distributed to an industry group, is seen as critical in pushing it forward.
“The United States does see merit in pursing discussions regarding implementation of a coordinated, global [system] . . . for ENUM,” Julian E. Minard, a State Department advisor to the International Telecommunication Advisory Committee, wrote to representatives of AT&T; and other companies. But Minard cautioned in the letter that aspects of the technology advocated by industry “go beyond what is prudent or necessary.”
ENUM is likely to be voluntary, requiring users to sign up for the service. But privacy experts say it will not be worth the time and investment the industry is making in the technology unless it is widely used. So they expect ENUM will be aggressively promoted.
“We believe that ENUM raises serious questions about privacy and security that need to be addressed before it’s widely deployed,” said Alan Davidson, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a privacy watchdog group based in Washington. “They are promoting this as a system that is going to make it really easy for people to find you in all kinds of ways. Well, we want to make sure that consumers can opt out if they don’t want to be found.”
Today, vigilant Web surfers can maintain a high degree of anonymity because e-mail and other Web addresses contain little personal information. What’s more, Web addresses under aliases can easily be created to cloak the identity of the sender. As a result, marketers have been forced to spend millions of dollars to get Web surfers to voluntarily give up personal information.
By contrast, a phone number has a wealth of personal information associated with it, including a street address, billing records and dialing data. Marrying such information to Web addresses would represent a leap in private data warehousing in cyberspace and dramatically increase the risk of privacy invasions, experts say.
“Someone could write a program to query the ENUM database and obtain every line of your contact information and send spam to every communications device you own,” said Chris Hoofnagle, legislative director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.
Hoofnagle added that industry claims that consumers would be able to opt out of the system, or otherwise protect their private information, are hollow. “There could be coercion down the road [by marketers] to push consumers to use ENUM to store their contact information. Absent legislation, there is likely to be abuse.”
Since the Federal Communications Commission regulates the nation’s telephone industry and the Commerce Department administers key contracts that allow private firms such as Mountain View, Calif.-based Verisign Inc. to register Internet domain names, the government is likely to play a powerful role in the outcome of ENUM.
Its backing of further ENUM development is the most significant support yet for the technology. It comes as a newly created industry group, called the ENUM-Forum, agreed last week to an ambitious schedule to conclude work on ENUM by next May.
“This is a big milestone,” Gary W. Richenaker, of Telcordia Technologies Inc., said of the group’s first meeting last Monday. Richenaker, who chaired the gathering, said that officials of the State Department, Federal Trade Commission and Commerce Department attended.
ENUM would work by combining two massive electronic databases: North American telephone numbers now administered by a Washington company called NeuStar Inc. and the main database that routes Internet messages, which is largely controlled by Verisign.
An ENUM address reverses a standard phone number and appends “e164.arpa” to it. For example, the toll-free directory assistance number would be converted to 2.1.2.1.5.5.5.0.0.8.1.e164.arpa. ENUM would recognize both the e164.arpa address and the phone number as belonging to directory assistance.
With some software tweaks to the current Internet system, computers could be made to route messages to such 11-digit ENUM addresses in much the same way they now use up to 12-digits to send e-mail and display Web pages.
Although industry engineers recently completed technical specifications for ENUM, AT&T;, Cisco Systems Inc., SBC Communications Inc. and more than 20 members of the ENUM-Forum agreed last week to work out additional critical details of the system.
ENUM-Forum players also include AOL Time Warner Inc., British Telecommunications plc and NetNumber.com Inc.--a Web start-up that has been operating a private, volunteer ENUM system for nearly a year.
The companies will tackle operational and security issues, such as who would be authorized to make service changes. Phones are ordinarily associated with street addresses, not individuals, so businesses and households with more than one person or phone would need to determine who has control over the ENUM associated with the phones.
The State Department’s Minard said his Aug. 21 letter reflected the input of several government agencies but termed the document a “draft” that could change as industry details about ENUM evolve.
Minard declined to elaborate on the misgivings expressed about ENUM in the letter. Other sources say ENUM is most strongly supported by the Commerce Department, while the FCC and State Department remain wary of the potential political fallout from embracing the technology.
The industry, too, is divided over how much the government should be involved. The heavily regulated telephone industry supports a broader government role than do Internet companies such as Verisign and AOL Time Warner.
Stacy M. Cheney, an attorney for the Commerce Department, said the government has not decided whether to play any regulatory role. But he said officials support “continuing discussions” on ENUM and would send representatives to a Sept. 12 meeting of an International Telecommunication Union panel to discuss the technology.
Industry officials liken ENUM’s potential effect to the introduction of touch-tone dialing in 1963. That advance paved the way for a host of modern phone features, including the ability to bank by phone and navigate voicemail menus.
ENUM “could be a huge boon to Internet telephony and basic communications convergence,” said Aristotle Balogh, vice president of technology at Verisign.
ENUM, however, may never be embraced by businesses or consumers because of the privacy concerns. The technology will also require support from Internet service providers, software developers, phone carriers and others.
Still, ENUM is expected to gain momentum with the government’s support. It could also get a big boost from efforts by Microsoft Corp. and AOL Time Warner to make new versions of their software support ENUM technology.
