The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposed fines totaling nearly $200 million on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon for sharing access to customers' location data without consent
After a 4-year investigation, FCC found the carriers sold location data to aggregators, who resold it to third parties without proper customer consent. The fines varied between carriers and were calculated based on continued sharing of customer data post-illegal notification, with AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon fined $57M, $12M, $80M, and $47M respectively. Despite being a fraction of the carriers' revenues, the fines come after reports of how firms like Securus Technologies exploited the data. While carriers promised to halt such practices, evidence showed little change as reporters could still track phones through third parties. Senator Wyden commended FCC for the action, underscoring the violation of consumer privacy and inadequate penalties in proportion to the harm caused. ```https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/04/fcc-fines-major-u-s-wireless-carriers-for-selling-customer-location-data/