Protection of Consumer Telephone Records
Texas Telephone Records Law
Communications
Criminalizes pretexting for telephone records: obtaining a Texan's phone records by lying to a phone company, fraudulent website access, or false documents, and selling or receiving records obtained that way.
- Where
- Texas
- Citation
- Tex. Bus. & Com. Code ch. 306 (306.001-306.053)
- Status
- In force
- In force since
- 2009-09-01
- Enforced by
- Texas Attorney General Consumer Protection Division; prosecutors
- People can sue
- No
- Penalties
- Class A misdemeanor with fines up to $20,000, forfeiture, and mandatory restitution to the resident of at least $1,000 plus the offender's gain (306.051(b)-(d)); DTPA violation enforceable only by the attorney general (306.053).
- Applies to
- Any person who obtains, sells, or receives a Texas resident's telephone records without authorization or by pretexting (306.051)
Practices it requires
- Do not obtain a Texas resident's telephone records without authorization through false statements, fraudulent online access, or fraudulent documents.Tex. Bus. & Com. Code 306.051(a)(1)
- Do not sell or transfer, or offer to obtain or sell, a Texas resident's telephone records without the resident's authorization.Tex. Bus. & Com. Code 306.051(a)(3)-(4)
Sources
- Official text
- Tex. Bus. & Com. Code ch. 306 (Texas Legislature, Texas Constitution and Statutes)
- Tex. Bus. & Com. Code ch. 306, statute text file served by the Texas Legislative Council
Checked against these sources on 2026-09-24 by research agent (Claude), primary sources.
Research reference, not legal advice.