The FCC has fined major U.S. wireless carriers, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon, nearly $200 million for illegally sharing customers‘ location data without consent despite knowing.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has fined major wireless carriers, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon, nearly $200 million for illegally sharing customers‘ location data without consent and failing to protect this sensitive information adequately. The fines were imposed due to the carriers selling access to location data to aggregators, who later resold it to third-party service providers without obtaining valid customer consent.
The carriers have been found in violation of federal law, which requires them to safeguard customer information and obtain explicit consent before sharing it. Sprint and T-Mobile, which have merged since the investigation started, are fined over $12 million and $80 million, respectively.
