The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has fined AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon almost $200 million combined for allegedly sharing their customer’s location data without obtaining consent. The agency claims that the carriers “sold access to its customers’ location information to ‘aggregators,’ who then resold access to such information to third-party location-based service providers.”
At $80 million, T-Mobile received the largest fine, while Sprint—which since merged with T-Mobile since the investigation began—faces $12 million. Verizon was fined $47 million, and AT&T received a $57 million fine. The fines issued to Verizon and T-Mobile were originally higher, but decreased by the FCC based on their responses to the original agency notice.
The action taken by the FCC “lacks both legal and factual merit. It unfairly holds us responsible for another company’s violation of our contractual requirements to obtain consent, ignores the immediate steps we took to address that company’s failures, and perversely punishes us for supporting life-saving location services like emergency medical alerts and roadside assistance that the FCC itself previously encouraged,” AT&T spokesperson Alex Byers said. “We expect to appeal the order after conducting a legal review.”
The agency began investigating the illegal data sharing after multiple media outlets reported on it. The plans for the fines were reported in 2020, but was put on hold until a fifth commissioner confirmed the action.
