Law enforcement cell phone data requests surge

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Last year, federal, state and local law enforcement authorities made more than 1.3 million requests for consumers’ cell phone records, according to wireless carriers’ response to a congressional inquiry.

The requests included include “cell tower dumps” – a process in which carriers provide all the phone numbers of cell users that connect with a tower during a particular period of time, and necessarily include data from consumers unconnected to any criminal activity, according to the information.

“We cannot allow privacy protections to be swept aside with the sweeping nature of these information requests, especially for innocent consumers,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who launched the congressional inquiry, in a statement.

Requests to wireless carriers for cell phone records require only a court order, a lower standard than the probable cause warrant required for most wiretaps, GPS device installations and other electronic data collection. According to Markey’s office, only 3,000 wiretaps were issued nationwide in 2011.

According to the wireless carriers who responded to Markey’s inquiry, requests from law enforcement officials have steadily increased at an annual rate of 12 to 15 percent.

Markey noted that the number of requests could be even higher, as T-Mobile did not respond to the inquiry.