Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!samsung!umich!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: SDRY@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (Sergio Gelato) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: 800 ANI - Is the Whole Number Neccessary? Message-ID: <10640@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 9 Aug 90 18:12:00 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 50 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 553, Message 4 of 11 In article <10575@accuvax.nwu.edu>, Ken Greer writes: In article <10508@accuvax.nwu.edu> johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine) writes: >>French phone bills leave out the last few digits of each number, >>explicitly for privacy purposes. I don't know if there's any way to >>get the omitted digits if you want them, or if they are even stored >>anywhere. >Privacy ?? I'm confused. You mean that in France I can >"non-invade" someone's privacy by calling him, but "invade" his >privacy by knowing his phone # (which I would know, since I had called >him) ? It isn't a matter of your knowing the phone number you called, but of too much data being stored on computer media about your life and activities. The law that prohibits the disclosure of the full numbers is the one known as "informatique et liberte"; it is intended mainly to prevent the kind of thing some people have complained about in this forum, that anyone who looks at your credit record will get a very good idea of your personal tastes and lifestyle. In the case of phone numbers, Mr. X probably wouldn't want anyone to tell his wife that all these calls to 4787-XXXX are not to his old aunt. His privacy should be respected, and the information not be disclosed to anyone. Hence, it should never appear in print anywhere (not even on a phone bill), and in fact should not even be stored on France Telecom's computers (in case one of their employees should try blackmail, for example; or in case someone breaks into those computers). >Seriously, how would anyone contest a wrongly charged call ? >Perhaps a better question would be: Are you even allowed to contest a >charge ? Contesting charges is probably more common in the USA than in France (disclaimer: I don't have any hard statistics -- this is just a guess). However, you should still be able to say "I never called anyone in exchange YYYY on that day", in the same way as you can tell a US telephone company "I never called (XXX)XXX-XXXX". Anyway, any form of detailed billing is an improvement on the previous state of affairs (when you only got a lump charge for the month's calls). And privacy is worth more than a few extra francs on a bill (at least to me). Sergio Gelato