The FCC Fines Wireless Companies for Selling Users' Location Data

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In May 2018, The New York Times reported that a company called Securus had sold law-enforcement agencies access to the locations of people’s cellphones. Police were supposed to provide a warrant or other documentation proving they had authority to see the data, but the Times said Securus often didn’t check.

Subsequent stories by ZDNet and Vice Motherboard revealed an industry of middlemen that acquired location information from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon and resold it to companies like Securus. Some of the information came from the bail bonds industry, raising concerns that stalkers could buy their victims' location information.

The big four carriers all promised to stop selling location data to data aggregators. But months later, many companies still had access to carrier data.

Now, nearly two years later, the Federal Communications Commission is taking action against the four carriers for their role in these breaches of privacy. Friday, the agency said it has proposed tentative fines against the companies totaling more than $200 million: $91 million for T-Mobile, $57 million for AT&T, $48 million for Verizon, and $12 million for Sprint. The fines are based on the amount of time that the carriers sold access to customer location information “without reasonable safeguards” and the number of outside companies to which they sold it.

https://www.wired.com/story/fcc-fines-wireless-companies-selling-users-location-data/?bxid=5be9f8cb24c17c6adf0e5d24&cndid=25394153&utm_brand=biz&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_mailing=thematic_business_03022020&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nl&utm_term=Thematic_Business