Four wireless carriers have each been fined millions of dollars by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The FCC on Monday accused AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon of sharing access to customers' location information “without their consent and without taking reasonable steps to protect that information from unauthorized disclosure.” , accused carriers of imposing fines.
Regulators claimed this was a violation of the law.
In this connection, regulators have fined T-Mobile more than $80 million, and its brand Sprint has also been fined more than $12 million, according to a press release from the agency.
Meanwhile, AT&T and Verizon's fines totaled approximately $57 million and $47 million, respectively.
The FCC alleged that “aggregators” that received customer location data from carriers charged third-party location service providers a fee for access.
The regulator also alleged that carriers continued the practice of selling access to such data “even after recognizing that their security measures were ineffective.”
“This industry-wide third-party aggregator location services program was discontinued more than five years ago after taking steps to ensure critical services such as roadside assistance, fraud prevention, and emergency response remained uninterrupted. “T-Mobile told FOX. work.
“We take our responsibility to keep our customer data secure very seriously and have always supported the FCC's efforts to protect consumers, but this decision is wrong and the fine is excessive. We are going to take on that challenge.”
AT&T also disagrees with the FCC's move, telling FOX Business it plans to challenge the order “after conducting a legal review.”
The Texas-based airline “impromptly exposes us to liability for another company's violation of our contractual requirements to obtain consent, and we take immediate steps to address that company's failure.” “It ignores this and unfairly punishes us for supporting location-based services that save lives, such as emergency medical care.” Alerts and roadside assistance that the FCC itself had previously encouraged. ”
“Verizon is deeply committed to protecting customer privacy,” company spokesperson Rich Young told FOX Business.
“In this case, one malicious actor gained unauthorized access to information about a very small number of customers, and we quickly and proactively blocked the fraudster and shut down the program to ensure that this kind of thing never happens. We worked hard to ensure it never happened again. Unfortunately, the FCC's order was wrong both in fact and in law, and we plan to appeal this decision.”
The old program, which Verizon ended more than five years ago, “required affirmative opt-in consent from customers and was intended to support services such as roadside assistance and medical alerts,” Young said.
The fines come more than four years after the FCC first imposed financial penalties on four wireless carriers in 2020.
In total, the fines announced Monday are worth just under $200 million.
Regulators had cited an incident in which a former law enforcement officer was reported to have obtained location information through a “location service” as a trigger for scrutiny of carriers.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement that the FCC is “once again…[d]We make it clear that wireless carriers have an obligation to keep geolocation information confidential by implementing orders and penalties.
The market capitalizations of AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, each included in the 12 numbers, hover at $121.1 billion, $192.38 billion, and $166.22 billion, respectively.