| Friend,
On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission announced nearly $200 million in fines against AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon for illegally sharing customers' location data.1
This investigation into these wireless carriers' misconduct began in 2020, when the FCC found that these companies were illegally selling customers' real-time location data to third parties.
We're pleased with the FCC's actions but urge the agency to bear in mind the severe consequences of delayed action on this front: Customer information was accessible to data brokers, bounty hunters2 and others who weren't authorized to possess it, a harrowing reality in an era where nefarious actors might target people seeking abortion care or engaging in peaceful protest. In the wrong hands, sensitive data can compromise people's safety and violate their most basic rights.
Carriers are explicitly forbidden under the Communications Act to sell this information without their customers' permission, yet the companies keep showing disregard for the law and our safety as they pursue profits above all else. Even these multimillion-dollar fines may be too small for these massively profitable companies to give up on giving away your data.
Future fines must be high enough to stop this dangerous and manipulative behavior for good. We're counting on the FCC to continue taking these violations seriously and conducting enforcement accordingly. We will let you know if these abuses of your privacy rights continue to occur.
Thank you,
Jenna and the rest of us at Free Press
freepress.net
P.S. This is a win, but it's long overdue and still not enough. It's also not the only privacy violation Free Press is currently tracking — will you chip in today to help us protect everyone's sensitive information? 1. "FCC Fines Largest Wireless Carriers for Sharing Location Data," Federal Communications Commission, April 29, 2024
2. "I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone," Vice, Jan. 8, 2019 |
