Calling on Congress: Modernize the Stored Communications Act

Verizon is pleased to release our Transparency Report for the second half of 2017. This is our ninth Transparency Report. As in the past, this report describes the different types of demands we receive and the types of data that we disclose in response to those demands. The number of demands that we have received each year continues to be fairly stable since we released our first report.

Congress needs to modernize the Stored Communications Act. Bills have been introduced over the years, but without any results. In 2017, the Senate introduced the ECPA Modernization Act of 2017 and the International Communications Privacy Act. The former tries to find the right balance between privacy and law enforcement for the data of today’s developing technologies. The latter tries to find the balance between law enforcement needs and the sovereignty of other nations when companies store that data overseas. Neither bill is perfect; with so many important interests at stake, perfection is likely impossible. But each bill would modernize an archaic statute, and each bill would give our customers and our industry sorely needed guidance in a world that has changed by leaps and bounds since 1986. We call on Congress to enact legislation to modernize the Stored Communications Act.