April 3, 2017 By: Meredith Attwell Baker

Wireless occupies a unique place in our customers' lives. After all, your mobile device represents an extension of you, and that wireless signal is the thread that connects you to your family and your friends. Being able to access data anywhere at any time comes with the expectation that customer privacy protections remain clear, comprehensive and consistent.

The wireless industry takes our privacy responsibility seriously, because protecting privacy is what our consumers rightfully expect. Our members offer clear, easy-to-understand privacy policies—policies that describe how each provider protects their customers' data and the choices their customers are empowered to make. 

You also benefit from federal and state statutory protections that protect sensitive information like your health records and your child's online usage. Nothing Congress did last week changes any of this. Your individual browser history is not going to be sold and your most sensitive data remains protected.

Current privacy safeguards include:

• Wireless carriers do not sell individual's browser history.
• Highly sensitive data—from your children's online activity to your financial and medical information—continues to be protected under existing laws and regulations.
• No existing and enforceable laws or regulations were eliminated when Congress acted last week. From federal statute and state law to wireless providers' privacy principles and individual policies, all these consumer protections remain in place.

Congress did right by wireless customers last week and took a critical step to the development of a cohesive and common sense set of privacy rules. Policymakers from the FTC and FCC seek to develop a "comprehensive and consistent framework" that ensures "[a]ll actors in the online space [are] subject to the same rules, enforced by the same agency." We support that effort fully.