FCC Fines Wireless Carriers About $200 Million for Sharing Customer Data

By Ben Glickman

Federal regulators fined wireless carriers Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint nearly $200 million for sharing customer-location data without consent.

The Federal Communications Commission on Monday said that an investigation found the four carriers sold access to customers' location data to aggregators, who resold the data to third parties.

The FCC said that Verizon was fined $46.9 million, AT&T was fined $57.3 million, T-Mobile was fined $80.1 million and Sprint was fined $12.2 million.

The agency first proposed the fines in 2020 following an investigation. The FCC said at the time that the carriers had relied on assurances that location-based services providers would obtain consent from customers before using their information.

The Commission slightly reduced its proposed penalties for Verizon and T-Mobile after reviewing additional evidence, according to the forfeiture orders for each company.

The FCC also alleged that the carriers continued to operate their programs without establishing protections to ensure the third parties obtained consent from customers, even after being made aware of the unauthorized access to data.

Carriers must keep customer data private unless they have obtained explicit consent from users, the FCC said.

Write to Ben Glickman at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

04-29-24 1440ET