Back when Caller ID was a service AND an affront to civil liberties
Back in 1988, many urban centers had newly installed digital switches from their regional telephone companies. One of the possible services was sending the telephone number of the calling party to the called party. There was a chicken and egg problem though. You needed a special device to display the number, and manufacturers were relunctant to develop new products if customers didn’t already exist. Small startup companies took up the challenge. By 1989, Cidco had become a dominant vendor of “caller ID boxes” – add ons to your phone. (yes that’s ciDco, long before ciSco!) At BNR/Nortel we braved the “bleeding edge” and manufacturered the first phone with integrated caller ID (pictured here – from my “phone museum”). It was branded Maestro – an impossible word to spell. Designed by IDer Alan Boykiw and UIer Lisa Fast it represented the dawn of interactive communications devices.
Customer demand for the phone and service was very high. There was one BIG problem we hadn’t anticipated. In Canada, new phone services are approved by a national agency. In the US, there’s a regulatory agency for each state! We never imagined resistance to such a convenient feature: it gave the called person the information to answer the phone or not. For some reason the Civil Libertarian Union in the US decided this violated personal privacy and lobbied hard to ban caller ID.
Pennsylvania ACLU Executive Director Barry Steinhardt said, “Caller ID is the bull in the privacy china shop.” The service would reveal unlisted phone numbers without the knowledge or consent of callers, he said.
State consumer advocate David Barasch said the service would more likely be used by businesses to create phone lists and other information banks.
Bell countered,
“Such a service would instantaneously solve the prank phone call problem and protect the person with a legitimate interest in privacy for whatever reason,”
It took years for the issue to get through the courts and get resolved. In Canada, there was little opposition. Given the acrimonious response of the ACLU back then, why have they had no similar issues with social net sites?? On the web there is no privacy. Is that a civil liberty?
Tags: Maestro, caller-id, ACLU, Social-networks, privacy
Well, there is privacy on the Net if you really want it. A good rule to follow before hitting submit is to ask yourself: do I really want this info online?
I’m a ghost online. Not even those websites which claim to be able to dig up info on a person have anything on me.
I also have friends who hardly ever use the Net. You won’t find anything on them online.
Sure net privacy can be done – if you choose to protect yourself from the start. Once you let out information you can never get it back.
I’ve even found pre-net info about me from government web sites that are publicly accessible. (It was an objection I submitted in 1992 to the CRTC criticizing the performance of my cable co at that time.)
It’s too late to hide now!
Great creepy photo. With a great creepy ‘anonymous’ comment to follow. We’ll just never know who Mr. Privacy really is!