988 Georouting Order Seen Protecting Privacy, With Caveats

Privacy and mental health advocates are largely supportive of the privacy protections in the 988 call georouting draft order, which is on the FCC's October meeting agenda (see 2409260047). An FCC official told us 5-0 approval is likely.

Under the draft order, commercial mobile radio service providers must aggregate the cell-based location data of calls to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline to the level that it won't identify the location of the cell site or base station receiving the 988 call.

The order, said Electronic Privacy Information Center lawyer Chris Frascella, does a decent job of privacy protection on georouting, making explicit the requirement for aggregating location data. More concerning, he said, is that the FCC didn't explicitly prohibit geolocation. That leaves the door open for the agency to change direction later on requiring geolocation, in which the call carries far more granular, specific data about the caller's exact location. Geolocation is implicitly prohibited, since the data for now can't be specific to the point of identifying a cell site or base station carrying the call, "but that's not the same thing as the agency tying its own hands" with an explicit geolocation prohibition, he said.

Moreover, the order is murky on issues surrounding service providers collecting 988 call data for use in things such as targeted ads, Frascella said.

Addressing mental health advocates' concerns about privacy and geolocation, the FCC order said it wasn't requiring provision of relocation data with 988 calls "at this time." The record doesn't show a need to include geolocation information with 988 calls for routing purposes, it added.

In the order, the FCC said it wasn't specifying a technology for aggregating location data. "Our decision carefully balances two core objectives of georouting: ensuring the location data is sufficiently granular to connect the caller with local resources and maintaining the caller’s privacy."

While wireless interests argued a 988 georouting mandate wasn't necessary (see 2407300050), the FCC, in the draft order, said it was "balanc[ing] the request to proceed more cautiously, as voiced by providers, with the significant record support calling for the need for a georouting mandate that enhances access to critical local services for callers in crisis without delay." "Given the clear public interest benefits of supporting georouting for wireless 988 calls ... deployment and implementation of georouting solutions for wireless 988 calls should not be optional," it said.

An accompanying Further NPRM proposes requiring text providers support georouting texts to the 988 Lifeline to the appropriate crisis center.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness, which has repeatedly lobbied the FCC on georouting (see 2401170053 and [Ref:2304280046), applauded the draft order. Shannon Scully, NAMI director-justice policy and initiatives, said the same needs for georouting calls should drive the FCC to require georouting texts. "It shouldn't matter how you choose to communicate," she said.

On geolocation, Scully said that communities are in the process of building robust crisis systems that include 24/7 crisis center call takers, mobile crisis teams and crisis receiving centers. She said for communities that have such a safety net in place, a lot of emergencies can be addressed through the initial call routed to a crisis center. Having those calls accurately directed to a center close to the caller makes it easier to get the caller referrals and directed to local resources, she said. Even without the granular location data that would come with geolocation, communities are successful at getting people care, she said.