FCC Said Ready to Fine 4 Major National Carriers for Selling Customer Location Data

Wireless carriers and CTIA had no comment Thursday on a report that Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint face proposed FCC fines for failing to safeguard data on their customers' real-time locations. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the FCC is doing too little too late. The companies face hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and the FCC isn't offering a settlement, The Wall Street Journal reported.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said earlier this month the Enforcement Bureau completed an investigation of whether carriers violated federal law by disclosing consumers’ real-time location data (see 2001310058). “We can’t comment on enforcement items until they have been adopted by the Commission and announced,” an FCC spokesperson emailed.

“Pai has failed to protect American consumers at every stage of the game,” Wyden said in a statement: “He only investigated after public pressure mounted. And now his response is a set of comically inadequate fines that won’t stop phone companies from abusing Americans’ privacy the next time they can make a quick buck. Time and again, from Facebook to Equifax, massive companies take reckless disregard for Americans’ personal information, knowing they can write off comparatively tiny fines as the cost of doing business.” Wyden said Congress can protect consumers only by passing strong privacy legislation and holding “CEOs personally responsible for lying about protecting Americans’ privacy.”

A lawyer who handles such cases said the FCC will likely issue notices of apparent liability against all four national carriers. They could protest. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is "pleased with what appears to be the FCC not only taking the matter very seriously but seeking to hold these carriers accountable for the harms that they’re caused and the privacy invasions that they’ve brought upon their customers,” EFF Staff Attorney Aaron Mackey said.

“While the FCC’s action is welcome, it is long overdue,” said Sharon Bradford Franklin, policy director at New America’s Open Technology Institute. “Consumers trust wireless providers to collect their location information for the sole purpose of providing the wireless communications services,” she said: “This location information is so sensitive and revealing of the patterns of everyday life that the Supreme Court has required law enforcement to get a warrant before collecting this data. Meanwhile, wireless carriers sold this sensitive information without the consent of their customers, in direct violation of the Communications Act and the FCC’s rules.”