FCC proposes requiring telecoms to collect government IDs and addresses from all new and renewing phone customers to combat scammers; privacy advocates compare measure to authoritarian tracking, warn it will eliminate burner phones and harm domestic abuse survivors, journalists, low-income users.

FCC Wants to Kill Burner Phones By Forcing Telecoms to Get All Customers’ IDs

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to make it effectively impossible for people to buy what many call burner phones—a phone not explicitly linked to your identity at the point of purchase—which would impact privacy-conscious people, to domestic abuse survivors, to journalists, and many more. The FCC plans to do this by legally forcing the country’s telecoms to store a wealth of personal information about essentially all phone customers, including a government issued identification...