This has been the case in Spain for a few years now, and it's been credited with saving lives: https://www.supportinspain.info/organisations/016-domestic-a...
Domestic violence hotline calls will soon be invisible on your family phone plan
21–25 of 25 posts
Re: Domestic violence hotline calls will soon be invisible on your family phone plan
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
They haven't decided details like this. The actual notice of proposed rulemaking [1] explicitly asks for feedback on this: > 117. We also seek comment on whether we should establish exceptions...? How often are toll calls or usage-fee-inducing mobile calls and text messages made to hotlines? > 145. Are there any potential inconsistencies between the rules that we might adopt to ensure the privacy of calls and text me…
> I also suspect most domestic volence hotlines are toll free. Don't toll free calls placed from cell phones count against minutes just like normal calls do?
Maybe they shouldn't.
Re: Domestic violence hotline calls will soon be invisible on your family phone plan
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you think domestic abusers won't go to these lengths, you must not know any victims.
I'm guessing some would, some would if they knew to, many won't.
The most problematic ones, where this is most important, will definitely do so. A seriously unhinged domestic abuser is almost identical to an extremely scary stalker in demeanor, except they also live in your house and have access to an incredible amount of information about you.
Re: Domestic violence hotline calls will soon be invisible on your family phone plan
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're common in Germany, since calls and SMS are rarely used. Mobile data for WhatsApp is far more useful.
You have to really be pinching pennies to get one of those plans. Even on Aldi Talk, you'd only pay €3 more per month for unlimited calls and SMS than you would for a data-only plan. https://www.alditalk.de/produktinformationsblatt
With Vodafone you can swap fewer minutes for more data. It's fairly sensible with even the 10-20€ plans.
Besides, it's important to remember that not everyone is a tech worker. One man's penny pinching is another's necessity.
Re: Domestic violence hotline calls will soon be invisible on your family phone plan
#25On cell phone plans that still charge per minute of talk, how is this going to work? Will those carriers make domestic violence hotline calls be free and not count against your total minutes? If not, then won't the resulting discrepancy between the amount of the bill and the number of minutes for each individual call on it make it obvious what happened?
Domestic abuser: "I tallied only 748 minutes of calls across these 9 pages, and after subtracting the 500 included minutes in your plan, we were only charged an additional $12.28 instead of the expected $12.40. Explain yourself!"
Or... The abuser searches "why is my phone bill higher than my total minutes " and the results are "Here are the 1 things that count against on your minutes, but don't show up on your bill: domestic violence calls"
Or they call the carrier and ask why the numbers don't add up. The carrier can't say "idk but still pay us". It's more complex than just saying that nobody ekll notice a few cents