The FCC plans to impose millions of fines on large US telecom providers because they have not properly protected location data of their customers. They would have sold the location data to third parties, but not enough privacy measures would have been taken.
The American telecom watchdog has announced the news itself. The intention is to impose fines of 208 million dollars on telecom providers. This concerns the four major providers: AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint. T-Mobile, by the way, should be fined with an amount of $ 91 million. AT&T, Verizon and Sprint are assessed for respectively 57 million, 48 million and 12 million dollars.
According to the FCC, the four major providers have sold location data of their customers, without taking sufficient measures to limit unauthorized access to the data. The use of the data requires explicit consent from the customer, and according to the FCC, data has been used by companies in a number of cases without their consent from the relevant customers.
According to the FCC, the providers relied on contractual agreements not to allow unauthorized access, but in practice this would not do much. According to the FCC, the providers are responsible for the practices of the companies that collect the location data.
In a response to Engadget, T-Mobile has announced that it has stopped selling the location data, and that it will contest the intended fine of the FCC. The other providers have not yet responded. The FCC has indicated that the proposed fines are not yet final.
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