INDIANAPOLIS — There is a good chance your cellphone carrier is being fined millions for sharing customer data.
The Federal Communications Commission is fining Sprint and T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon a collective total of almost $200 million.
The agency said in a press release the nation’s largest wireless carriers were illegally sharing access to customers’ location data without consent and without proper safeguards.
The release also said their investigation found that the carriers sold the access to “aggregators,” who then resold it to third-party location-based service providers. By doing this, they allege each carrier attempted to pass the buck when it came to obtaining customer consent.
There is an expectation the carriers will try and appeal the order.
AT&T said in a statement that:
“The FCC order lacks both legal and factual merit. It unfairly holds us responsible for another company’s violation of our contractual requirements to obtain consent, ignores the immediate steps we took to address that company’s failures, and perversely punishes us for supporting life-saving location services like emergency medical alerts and roadside assistance that the FCC itself previously encouraged. We expect to appeal the order after conducting a legal review.”
AT&T continued to say that:
"The FCC proposed its fine without citing a single example in which location data for any AT&T customer was unlawfully shared. The order penalizes us for trying to maintain valued consumer services offered by companies with absolutely no track record of misconduct and ignores that we took immediate steps to address the failures of one bad apple. While we continued the program for a time to minimize disruption to these important services, it was terminated in early 2019. The FCC calculated its staggering fine without any hearing, with an egregiously irrational methodology, and in contradiction to its governing statute."
T-Mobile said in a statement that:
"This industry-wide third-party aggregator location-based services program was discontinued more than five years ago after we took steps to ensure that critical services like roadside assistance, fraud protection and emergency response would not be disrupted. We take our responsibility to keep customer data secure very seriously and have always supported the FCC’s commitment to protecting consumers, but this decision is wrong, and the fine is excessive. We intend to challenge it. "
Verizon said in a statement:
“Verizon is deeply committed to protecting customer privacy. In this case, when one bad actor gained unauthorized access to information relating to a very small number of customers, we quickly and proactively cut off the fraudster, shut down the program, and worked to ensure this couldn't happen again. Unfortunately, the FCC’s order gets it wrong on both the facts and the law, and we plan to appeal this decision. Keep in mind, the FCC's order concerns an old program that Verizon shut down more than half a decade ago. That program required affirmative, opt-in customer consent and was intended to support services like roadside assistance and medical alerts.”
Editor's Note: In the original airing of this segment, AT&T's statement was incorrectly attributed to Verizon.