Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission with regulatory authority over public utilities, including telephone corporations. The Moore Universal Telephone Service Act establishes the Universal Lifeline Telephone Service program in order to provide low-income households with access to affordable basic residential telephone service. Existing law requires the commission to accept applications for lifeline telephone service according to procedures specified by the commission.

This bill would prohibit the commission, its staff, the lifeline program’s third-party administrator, and lifeline service providers, and their contractors, agents, successors, or assignees, from sharing, disclosing, or otherwise making accessible any information provided by an applicant or subscriber to the lifeline program, or a subprogram or pilot program of the lifeline program, to any agency of a local government, a state government, or the federal government, or to an immigration authority, as defined, without a court-ordered subpoena or valid judicial warrant, except as specified. The bill would authorize the commission, its staff, the lifeline program’s third-party administrator, and lifeline service providers, and the providers’ agents, successors, or assignees, to request, but would prohibit those entities from requiring, applicants and subscribers to provide social security numbers to apply to, or participate in, the lifeline program.

Existing law prohibits a telephone or telegraph corporation from making certain categories of personal information available to any other person or corporation without first obtaining the residential subscriber’s consent in writing. Existing law exempts information provided to a law enforcement agency in response to lawful process from that prohibition.

This bill would define “lawful process,” for that purpose, to mean an action taken pursuant to a court-ordered subpoena or judicial warrant.

Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.