UPDATE T-Mobile said it intends to fight the FCC’s proposed $91 million-plus penalty for allegedly mishandling consumers’ location data. Inside Towers reported the agency on Friday proposed lesser fines for AT&T ($57M), Verizon ($48M) and Sprint ($12M).
T-Mobile said in a statement it ended its location-sharing program in February 2019, and would contest the penalty.
“While we strongly support the FCC’s commitment to consumer protection, we fully intend to dispute the conclusions of this NAL [Notice of Apparent Liability] and the associated fine,” a T-Mobile spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal. The other carriers said they were reviewing the documents.
The proposed fines differ because they reflect the length of time each carrier shared information without proper safeguards and the number of parties that had access to the data, according to the Commission. The carriers can challenge the decision.
Section 222 of the Communications Act requires phone companies to protect their customers’ sensitive personal information, including location data. The Enforcement Bureau said the carriers failed to make reasonable efforts to police third-party data handlers that had access to the information.
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