The US government has imposed significant fines on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon following an investigation that revealed these top wireless carriers had unlawfully shared customers' personal data without consent. The fines were a result of allegations made by the Federal Communications Commission in 2020, accusing the companies of sharing users' geolocation histories with third parties, including prisons, as part of their commercial programs.
The fines were targeted at the practice of sharing user location information with data resellers, known as 'location aggregators,' who then passed on the data to their own third-party customers. Despite promises to cease this practice after public scrutiny in 2018, the carriers took nearly a year or longer to halt the data sharing, as per the FCC.
AT&T faces a $57 million fine, Verizon nearly $47 million, Sprint $12 million, and T-Mobile $80 million. Sprint and T-Mobile, which merged in 2020, were both penalized. In response, all carriers have expressed intentions to appeal the FCC's decision, citing legal and factual discrepancies.
AT&T stated that the FCC order lacked legal and factual merit, unfairly holding them responsible for another company's violation. Verizon emphasized its commitment to customer privacy, highlighting its swift actions to address unauthorized access to customer information. T-Mobile defended its discontinued location data-sharing program, calling the fine excessive and expressing plans to challenge the decision.
In 2018, a probe by Senator Ron Wyden revealed that cellphone location information had reached Securus, a prison phone services provider, raising concerns about potential misuse. Wyden commended the FCC for investigating and holding the companies accountable for jeopardizing customer privacy.
