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September 11, 2005
Caller ID and privacy issues
(Taking a short break from financial accounting homework)
I'm basically a privacy hawk -- I think corporations and the government have far too much access to our personal information, and that we should enact privacy legislation more like what they have in Europe.
But in another case of things not always being what they seem, I remember when Caller ID first came out as a public telephone service -- if I recall, this was in around 1988 or '89 or so. At my office, we used to have a VAX Notes bulletin board, and the discussions we had, when Caller ID was announced as an upcoming product, all centered around how intrusive and Orwellian we thought it was. Imagine the horror -- people being able to tell who you were, and where you were calling from, before they picked up the phone! Shocking!
But once Caller ID came into general use, I have to admit, any "privacy" concerns I'd had went completely out the window. With Caller ID, it was no longer necessary to let the answering machine pick up a call, then listen to the first part of the caller's message and decide whether or not to pick it up. If the caller was someone you knew, you could just pick up the phone immediately -- or, if not, you could just ignore it.
A few years ago, I wrote a couple of columns on telemarketing, including this one, which generated as many letters as any column I've written. Not long afterwards, Meg and I got a talking Caller ID unit, which proved to be one of the best products we've ever bought, because it allowed us to hear who the caller was before we even got up off the couch.
Since then, two developments have occurred that rendered the talking Caller ID unnecessary: (1) the National Do Not Call List, and (2) the fact that we don't use the land line for voice calls anymore, and telemarketing to cell phones is illegal.
Still, I never answer a call if I look at the ID and don't recognize the number. It now seems strange that when Caller ID was first announced, it seemed like a privacy nightmare!
Posted by Urbie at September 11, 2005 10:51 AM