AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon are among the telecommunications carriers facing hundreds of millions of dollars in fines from the Federal Communications Commission after a federal investigation found the companies didn't do enough to protect the location data of users.

The telecoms are expected to fight the FCC's decision.

From reporting by Drew FitzGerald and Sarah Krouse at the Wall Street Journal:

The Federal Communications Commission is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in fines from the country’s top cellphone carriers after officials found the companies failed to safeguard information about customers’ real-time locations, according to people familiar with the matter.

The telecom regulator in recent weeks informed AT&T Inc., Sprint Corp., T-Mobile US Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. of pending notices of apparent liability, the people said.

Read more at the WSJ:

FCC Probe Finds Mobile Carriers Didn’t Safeguard Customer Location Data [via techmeme]

Drip, drip, drip...In January the carriers were found to be illegally disclosing customers' location data to 3rd party. Now, they weren't safeguarding the location data to begin with. Oops, it's only the real time location of millions of subscribers. https://t.co/TCnYomb06D

 Ramsey McGrory (@RamseyMcGrory) February 27, 2020

WSJ: FCC Probe Finds Mobile Carriers Didn’t Safeguard Customer Location Data

"the companies can still argue they aren’t liable or should pay less. It would ultimately fall on the U.S. Justice Department to collect any penalties."https://t.co/ZLkcZB2Ixm

 Hamza Shaban (@hshaban) February 27, 2020

AT&T and T-Mobile are among the companies facing hundreds of millions of dollars in fines after FCC probe finds that carriers didn’t do enough to protect location data, though the carriers will likely fight decision https://t.co/mNQL4Rutsk

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/27/att-t-mobile-sprint-verizo.html