N.Y. General Business Law 399-DD*3 – Consumer communications records privacy
* § 399-dd. Consumer communications records privacy. 1. For purposes of this section, the following terms shall have the following meanings:
Terms Used In N.Y. General Business Law 399-DD*3
- Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
- Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
- Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
- Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
- Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
- Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
- Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
(a) "telephone record" means information retained by a telephone company that relates to the telephone number dialed from the telephone of a customer or the incoming number of a call directed to the telephone of a customer, the content of alphanumerical messages sent to or from a telephone or other data related to such calls typically contained on a telephone bill of a customer including but not limited to the time the call started and ended, the duration of the call, the time of day the call was made and any charges applied, provided, however, that information commonly known as caller identification or caller ID information transmitted to or retained by the recipient of a call shall not constitute a telephone record;
(b) "telephone company" means any person, firm, partnership, association, limited liability company, corporation, trust, business or other entity that provides commercial or residential telephone services to a customer, irrespective of the communications technology used to provide such service, including, but not limited to, traditional wireline or cable telephone service; cellular, broadband PCS, or other wireless telephone service; microwave, satellite, or other terrestrial telephone service; and voice over Internet telephone service;
(c) "telephone" means any device used by a person for voice communications, in connection with the services of a telephone company, whether such voice communications are transmitted in analog, data, or any other form;
(d) "customer" means the person who subscribes to telephone service from a telephone company or in whose name such telephone service is listed; and
(e) "procure" in regard to such a telephone record means to obtain by any means, whether electronically, in writing or in oral form, with or without consideration.
2. No person, firm, partnership, association, limited liability company, corporation, trust, business or other entity shall knowingly and intentionally procure, attempt to procure, solicit or conspire with another to procure, offer for sale, sell or fraudulently transfer or use or attempt to sell or fraudulently transfer or use, telephone record information from a telephone company, without written authorization from the customer to whom such telephone record information relates except as otherwise provided for by applicable law. Nothing in this section shall be construed so as to prevent any action pursuant to a subpoena or by a law enforcement agency, or any officer, employee, or agent of such agency, to obtain telephone record information from a telephone company in connection with the performance of the official duties thereof, in accordance with other applicable laws.
3. (a) Whenever the attorney general shall believe from evidence satisfactory to him or her that there is a violation of this section, he or she may bring an action in the name and on behalf of the people of the state of New York, in a court of competent jurisdiction to enjoin and restrain the continuation of such violation. In such action, preliminary relief may be granted under Article 63 of the civil practice law and rules. In such action, the court may award reasonable attorney's fees and damages for actual costs or losses incurred by a customer whose telephone records were sold or fraudulently transferred or were attempted to be sold or fraudulently transferred. Whenever the court shall determine in such action that a person or business violated this section, the court may impose a civil penalty of one thousand dollars per violation.
(b) The remedies provided by this section shall be in addition to any other lawful remedy available.
(c) No action may be brought under the provisions of this section unless such action is commenced within two years immediately after the date of the act complained of or the date of discovery of such act.
* NB There are 3 § 399-dd's