Key Points:
- The FCC slaps fines totaling almost $200 million on leading US mobile carriers for unlawfully sharing customers’ location data without consent.
- Carriers are accused of selling access to location information to intermediaries who further sell it to third-party service providers, sidestepping consent requirements.
- T-Mobile faces the largest fine of $80 million, followed by AT&T with approximately $57 million, Sprint (now merged with T-Mobile) at $12 million, and Verizon at about $47 million.
The FCC has fined US mobile carriers nearly $200 million for sharing their customers’ location data without authority. FCC requirements in areas specified that carriers violated customers’ privacy by selling their location information to intermediaries without the required consent of third-party service providers.
As a result, such a method contributes to a breach of carriers’ responsibility because it allows them to collect customer location data without their consent in order to share this information with downstream recipients. When warned about the issue, the FCC insists that Congress gave carriers the authority to release that sensitive data by not taking proper security measures.
The carriers fined vary in fines, with T-Mobile being hit the hardest with $80 million. Sprint could face fines of up to $12 million after T-Mobile’s acquisition. AT&T has been paid the second-largest fine amount, on average, at $57 million, behind Verizon’s $47 million fine. However, it’s worth noting that the fines charged to T-Mobile and Verizon are slightly lower than those initially proposed by the FCC, given the arguments offered by both carriers in response to the regulator.
This story was featured in 2019 by Motherboard, a website founded by world-renowned technology journalist, Joseph Cox. Nevertheless, the contentiousness of the sanctions payments was made public in 2020 due to the impasse at the agency and the closure awaiting the appointment of the Fifth Commission.
For AT&T, the FCC was mistaken and inaccurate, and that was the reason for the decision, and it was announced that it would appeal. Similarly, Verizon spokesperson Young rejected the FCC’s claim, adding that the company had responded immediately to the unauthorized access, and implemented additional preventative plans, and also planned to fight the decision through litigation. Was committed. T-Mobile declined to take this step because it claimed to follow its own company policies.
