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FCC Fines AT&T, T-Mobile, and Others for Sharing Your Location Data

By Laura Tucker
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It’s kind of a slap in the face to learn that the very people we entrust with all of our data are the very same people who are responsible for it falling into the wrong hands. The FCC announced that it fined the four major wireless carries in the U.S. for illegally sharing access to the location data of their customers. It’s great that they were fined, but it still leaves an unsettled feeling that it happened at all.

Trusting the Big Four

Your wireless carrier is most likely AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, or Sprint. They’re the biggest four carriers in the country and earned much trust because of this. You wouldn’t be wrong to choose them for your carrier because you felt you could trust them more than a smaller, less well-known carrier.

Fcc Fines Wireless Carriers Verizon
Image source: Unsplash

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden first brought the problem with the big four to the FCC’s attention. An investigation of the carriers found that each of them sold access to their customers’ location data. It was sold to “aggregators,” who in turn resold it to third-party location-based service providers. They never gained consent, since there was a middleman involved. According to the investigation, even though the carriers were aware that there were effectively no safeguards, they continued to sell access to this information.

According to the Communications Act law, however, the carriers are required to protect your data. Additionally, they need to maintain confidentiality of the data and to get your consent before using it, disclosing it, or allowing access to it. This also applies when information is shared with third parties.

“The protection and use of sensitive personal data, such as location information, is sacrosanct,” said Loyaan A. Egal, Chief of the FCC Enforcement Bureau and Chair of its Privacy and Data Protection Task Force. “When placed in the wrong hands or used for nefarious purposes, it puts all of us at risk. Foreign adversaries and cybercriminals have prioritized getting their hands on this information, and that is why ensuring service providers have reasonable protections in place to safeguard customer location data and valid consent for its use is of the highest priority for the Enforcement Bureau.”

Fining the Big Four

You’re probably upset at this point, and rightfully so. We’ve all been so protective of our data, specifically location data, but we weren’t necessarily worried about the companies that have the most control over our data. Despite getting on “no-call” lists and the like, it was our wireless carriers that were doing us in.

Fcc Fines Wireless Carriers Att
Image source: Unsplash

While the FCC can’t take away your hurt feelings, it can punish the people that did this to you. It’s bringing hefty fines against the big four. T-Mobile is grabbing the biggest fine of $80 million, while Sprint was fined more than $12 million. Theirs may be significantly less because of a merger with T-Mobile. AT&T was fined more than $57 million, and Verizon was fined nearly $47 million.

“Our communications providers have access to some of the most sensitive information about us. 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,” said Jessica Rosenworcel, FCC Chairwoman.

“As we resolve these cases – which were first proposed by the last administration – the Commission remains committed to holding all carriers accountable and making sure they fulfill their obligations to their customers as stewards of this most private data.”

If you’re more worried about the performance of your phone, check out these apps that allow you to benchmark your phone. And if you’re tired of all the extras on your smartphone, check out these “dumb” smartphones.

Image credit: Unsplash

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Laura Tucker Avatar
Laura Tucker
Laura has spent more than 20 years writing news, reviews, and op-eds, with the majority of those years as an editor as well. She has exclusively used Apple products for the past 35 years. In addition to writing and editing at MTE, she also runs the site’s sponsored review program.

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