Issue
Will Congress or the Administration dictate the methods for collecting personal information, whether this information can be sold to interested parties, and ultimately how this personal information is used?

Importance
Personal information, i.e. name, telephone number, and address, available in the public domain and collected by a variety of information gathering techniques, is core to the direct marketing strategies that are used to identify prospective customers. Laws constraining the definition of personal data and its usage in targeting customers will force businesses to spend more time and money identifying potential customers. Telemarketers have a vested business incentive to protect personal data of their consumers as failure to do so risks damaging the relationship with the customer.

ATA Position
ATA supports the idea that self-regulation within industry will alleviate growing concerns over the use of personal information, while at the same time allowing businesses to target their products to the appropriate consumer segment. ATA favors an "opt out" strategy as fully capable of providing the required level of consumer protection. ATA opposes any form of an "opt in" policy as excessive, unnecessary, and imposing an overly restrictive burden on industry.

Background
With increased ease in gathering personally identifiable information, made possible by technological advances, businesses have increased their use of consumer databases and data mining as a means of identifying those customers who are more likely to have an interest in buying their products. Some of this information, particularly names, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses are readily available from electronic phone books and other public databases.

Other more detailed personal information such as hobbies, interests, opinions, etc. is gathered by websites or through loyalty programs where businesses ask their customers to voluntarily supply this information so that the business can better target their message and/or products to their customers. Whether or not this information is ultimately sold to a third party is decided by the business collecting the information. More importantly, this information may be collected without prior notification to the targeted individuals.

The federal government continues to explore methods to further define what is personal information, whether or not such information is sensitive, and whether businesses may sell this information with or without consent of the individual to interested third parties.

As in the 106th Congress, several bills have been introduced in the 107th Congress to regulate the collection and use of personal information. The Congressional Privacy Caucus was established to address privacy issues and has begun to issue position statements on several issues, including:

• Sale of customer proprietary network information (PNI) such as location, duration, and frequency of phone calls;
  
• Notifying customers on the type of information collected and how it will be used; and,
  
• Customer access to their personal information.

The Congressional Privacy Caucus supports the requirement that businesses must receive the consent of individuals before personally identifiable information is sold to a third party. Companies would also have to clearly outline what information they collect and to whom they provide this information. Individuals will also have the right to "opt out" or prohibit the company that collects their information from selling it to a third party.

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