Regulators move to fine telecoms for selling location data

US regulators moved to impose fines Friday against the nation's four major wireless carriers for selling location data of customers without their consent.

The Federal Communications Commission proposed fining T-Mobile more than USD 91 million; AT&T some USD 57 million; Verizon USD 48 million, and Sprint USD 12 million.

The wireless firms were accused of having disclosed mobile network user location data to a third party without authorisation from customers, the FCC said.

The FCC began an investigation after a report that a sheriff in Missouri used a "location-finding service" operated by a prison communications services company called Securus to track whereabouts of people, including a judge and law enforcement officers.

The carriers provided access to customer location data to "aggregators" who then resold information to services such as Securus, according to the regulator.

"American consumers take their wireless phones with them wherever they go," FCC chairman Ajit Pai said in a release.

"And information about a wireless customer's location is highly personal and sensitive."
"The current lack of a law means that anyone willing to spend a few hundred dollars can buy the location data of another person at any moment in time."
"That information was then available on the open market, putting people in real physical danger."