US FCC Fines Carriers $200 Million for Sharing Customer Location Data

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has imposed fines totaling approximately $200 million (about 270 billion KRW) on domestic mobile carriers that disclosed customers' location information to other companies without consent.

[Image source=EPA Yonhap News]

On the 29th (local time), the FCC announced the scale of the fines after an investigation confirmed that four carriers?Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint?sold access rights to customers' location information to intermediary businesses, which then resold the data to third parties. The fines imposed by the FCC are $46.9 million for Verizon, $57.4 million for AT&T, $80.1 million for T-Mobile, and $12.2 million for Sprint. Among these, Sprint and T-Mobile merged in 2020.

Previously, based on the investigation results, the FCC proposed fines for the first time in 2020, but due to a deadlock among internal commissioners at that time, the fine orders were not issued. On this day, the FCC pointed out that even after recognizing unauthorized access to customers' location information by the carriers, they failed to establish safeguards to ensure that third parties obtain customer consent.

On the other hand, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile stated that they would contest the FCC's announcement. The carriers argued that they have shared customer information for essential services such as vehicle emergency dispatch and emergency response.

AT&T claimed in a statement that the FCC's actions "lack legal and factual basis." T-Mobile stated that sharing location information with intermediary businesses was discontinued over five years ago and that the fine amount is excessive. Verizon also emphasized that the company is dedicated to protecting customer information and has discontinued the related programs, contesting the FCC's actions.