Philippine Nomad

GMA station reported in 24 that Philippine telecommunication companies have to store the data of their subscribers’ text and calls for about four months. The directive also applies to prepaid subscribers.

What will be stored
Voice call and non-voice call records such as sms and mms will be stored starting July. What needed to be stored are the origin, destination, date, time and duration of communication.

Purpose
The purpose behind storing the traffic data, according to the NTC, is to help subscribers monitor their billings. The NTC also pointed that this can help facilitate in consumer complaints.

Privacy Issues
The directive, I believe, will endanger the privacy of subscribers. While NTC has assured that only subscribers can get their data upon request, I have found it quite ironic that the PNP has found the data log retention helpful in their anti-terrorism campaigns. Please do not get me wrong, I am not a terrorist but is it not conflicting that while subscribers are the only ones allowed to get their traffic data, the PNP can use the data log retention to catch criminals and terrorists? How can PNP take advantage of the data log retention if they are not authorized to have access to the data?

Unconstitutional
According to article 3 section 3 of the Philippine Constitution,

“The privacy of communication and correspondence shall be inviolable except upon lawful order of the court, or when public safety or order requires otherwise as prescribed by law.”

Clearly the law upholds the privacy of communications (and that includes the sms and voice calls you send via your cellphone) and the inviolability of communication can only be broken

1. upon lawful order of the court and
2. when public safety or order requires

Accommodating consumer complaints is not reasonable enough to endanger the privacy of the Filipino landline and cellphone users.

Other Options
If the NTC is serious about protecting the consumer rights of telecommunication subscribers. It should look for better and safer options. Here is an option that I can think of and which I am suggesting to the NTC:

Give the subscribers options. If subscribers want to record the data of a certain call or sms, have them voluntarily send this for storage to their network. If they decided not to record their traffic data, they will know beforehand that their call or text complaints will be without proof and are therefore less credible. It is simply allowing subscribers to choose the lesser evil. After all, we have already lived up years of mysterious load disappearances.

Here’s another thought by a blogger on this issue:

“I thought we are living in a democratic country? But how come this memo is released? Why the administration didn’t have a say on this? Would this move by NTC also benefit them in having a close watch over their enemies?” Teh Blog Tech

For details, please see this link:

GMA7 Video
“Groups say NTC order an invasion of privacy”

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