Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile Finally Fined $192 Million For Abuse Of User Location Data
from the belated-wrist-slap dept
For several decades, major wireless carriers AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile collected vast troves of sensitive user location and movement data, then sold access to any random nitwit with two nickels to rub together. The result was a parade of scandals wherein everybody from stalkers to law enforcement (or pretending to be law enforcement) abused the data in problematic ways never made clear to the end user.
Though this behavior had been going on for years, it only gained mainstream attention thanks to a 2018 New York Times story showcasing how police and the prison system routinely bought access to this data and then failed completely to secure it. In 2020 the FCC proposed fining wireless carriers $196 million ($91 million for T-Mobile, $57 million for AT&T, $48 million for Verizon).
After four years of legal wrangling and delays (caused in part by the telecom industry’s attack on the Gigi Sohn FCC nomination, preventing the FCC from having a working voting majority) the FCC announced they had voted to finally formalize the fines:
“These carriers failed to protect the information entrusted to them. Here, we are talking
about some of the most sensitive data in their possession: customers’ real-time location
information, revealing where they go and who they are.”
It should be clear than $192 million (actually proposed by the Trump FCC) is a tiny, tiny fraction of the money these companies made monetizing your every last movement for decades. And it’s still very likely the carriers never get close to paying that amount. All three have promised to appeal, and it’s very likely that after another few years of legal wrangling those penalties are reduced further, if not vacated entirely.
All three carriers claim they’ve stopped the practice, but it’s extremely likely they’ve just revamped the programs after consultations with company lawyers, calling them something creatively new. It’s not particularly hard to avoid violating internet privacy laws in a country too corrupt to actually pass them.
While “big tech” gets the lion’s share of policy and press attention these days, telecom privacy violations have a long, rich, multi-decade history. An FTC study from 2021 documented how your ISP collects real-time location data, DNS data, browsing data, and demographic data, sells access in a myriad of creative ways, then routinely lies about what it’s doing, calling the process of “selling” your data, something else.
The FCC and FTC are too short staffed, under-funded, and boxed in by years of lobbying and dodgy court rulings to police privacy abuses at the scale they’re happening with any consistency. And Congress is too corrupt to pass even a baseline privacy law setting some ground rules and penalties for companies and executives. So this cycle continues until there’s another privacy scandal too messy to politically ignore.
Filed Under: fcc, fines, location data, privacy, privacy law, telecom, wireless, wireless phone
Companies: at&t, t-mobile, verizon
Comments on “Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile Finally Fined $192 Million For Abuse Of User Location Data”
More and more I ask myself why are we even paying for cellular service the amount of value they are generating from the hoovering of data they do means our service should probably be free at this point.
Re:
Even if they could run their cellular services for free, they would still raise fees and ask for more public money.
Theses companies are reckless and even more dishonest than banks. Unfortunately, we cannot live without both of them.
Re:
Because quarterly earnings aren’t going to continue to infinitely grow forever if they give anything away for free. Also, we’re reintroducing pay-per-text just because you complained…
As noted elsewhere,
This fine is a rounding error. Location information is a $1.2 billion market.
They’re laughing at the US government.
Title Clarification
Title of article should have read: “Verizon CUSTOMERS Charged Additional Mystery Fees” from the “CEOs/Board will NEVER feel the pain Dept.”
Don't see how this helps
In the end, we just pay more! We pay for the FCC and FTC and their lawyers through taxes, and we pay for those companies’ lawyers and their fines, through higher prices. In the end, they’re going to keep doing it, just in shadier ways. Only when the executive’s butts are on the line will something change.
This needs some fixing… I got it…
“These carriers failed to protect any of the information entrusted to them.”
SS numbers, birthdates, mother maiden names, names of first pets, as well as location data.
We know that comcast had an actual customer service department for members of congress, providing the sort of service regular users only dreamed of getting… I am wondering if they are also getting special treatment beyond the standard enjoy your credit monitoring. It would explain why they seem to care so little about all of these “hacks” (admin/admin isn’t a hack it should be a crime all its own).
When a corp leaks our data and someone takes out a loan in our name we’re left on the hook to fight tooth and nail to prove it wasn’t us, one wonders if the corps just pay off the debts for members of congress to keep them from understanding how the real world operates.
While it may only end up being $0.50, they need to give that $192 million to the various customers whose information was sold. They’re only going to jack up service fees to cover their loss… the least that the government could do is compensate the customers a little bit for some of that impending additional costs.
Telecom CEO: It looks as if we will have to pay those fines. (To executive assistant) Check the couch for loose change.