Reuters reported 29apr2024.
Summary by CHD The Defender.
The Federal Communications Commission on Monday fined the largest U.S. wireless carriers nearly $200 million for illegally sharing access to customers’ location information.
The FCC is finalizing fines first proposed in February 2020, including $80 million for T-Mobile (TMUS.O); $12 million for Sprint, which T-Mobile has since acquired; $57 million for AT&T (T.N), and nearly $47 million for Verizon Communications (VZ.N).
The carriers sold “real-time location information to data aggregators, allowing this highly sensitive data to wind up in the hands of bail-bond companies, bounty hunters, and other shady actors,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement.
Lawmakers in 2019 expressed outrage that aggregators were able to buy user data from wireless carriers and sell “location-based services to a wide variety of companies” and others, including bounty hunters.
Sources
- Reuters – FCC fines US wireless carriers over illegal location data sharing
- CHD Summary – FCC Fines U.S. Wireless Carriers Over Illegal Location Data Sharing
- See comments
