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From: klb@pegasus.att.com (Kevin L. Blatter)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Call Detail Recording
Message-ID: <11694@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 4 Sep 90 18:40:48 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 618, Message 7 of 8


In article <11669@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon)
writes:

[ Story of John's acquaintance using his phone deleted ]
 
> This fellow is still miffed. Well, what about it? Does anyone have the
> right to know what numbers are dialed on his phone (including local)?
> What about big companies who run SMDR, and a guest uses the phone in
> the lobby -- leaving a trail of his calling card and what have you on
> the SMDR? Should I have a sign in my living room that says, "All
> numbers dialed on this phone are recorded"?

I say that I have an absolute right to know what numbers are being
dialed from my phone (I, like John, have an SMDR device hooked up to
my two home lines) whether the calls are toll calls or not.  On the
other hand most people do not realize that when they check in to a
hotel and use their calling cards to avoid the hotel's rip-off phone
rates, that chances are the hotel is going to have their calling card
number!

For a few years prior to coming to work for AT&T I wrote call
accounting systems which utilizes SMDR information for billing or
whatever and our standard practice was if we saw a calling card number
come through that we stripped the information out and classified the
call as a 'charge call' which meant that we would not rate the call.
However, we could have stored the information for who-knows-what
purpose.

Perhaps 'we' (whoever 'we' are) should place notices on our phones as
John suggests, stating that dialed information is being recorded.
After all, resturants often announce that they use microwave ovens for
the would-be pacemaker customers.  Use at your own risk.


Kevin L. Blatter
AT&T - Bell Labs
Lincroft, NJ

Disclaimer - AT&T may or may not share my opinions.


[Moderator's Note: Re hotels and others with call detail having a
record of your calling card number: How do you think credit card calls
were handled years ago? You passed the number to the operator and the
hotel got 'memo' time and charges for commission purposes, etc. You
are dealing with an ethics thing here. Either the people that must
deal with record keeping that you create are honest about it, or they
are not honest about it. Many a telco operator could secretly write
down your calling card number and abuse it later. Some have done so,
some have been caught. Hotel operators are the same way. An honest
person in a position of trust does not abuse the trust.  PAT]