![]() We only share location data with customer consent. "Location-based services like roadside assistance, fraud protection, and medical device alerts have clear and even life-saving benefits. "The facts don't support this lawsuit, and we will fight it," AT&T told Ars today. While it wasn't mentioned in the lawsuits, the carriers' data sales may have also violated Federal Communications Commission rules against misusing data intended for 911 emergency location services. The lawsuits accuse the carriers of violating Section 222 of the US Communications Act, which says that carriers may not use or disclose location information "without the express prior authorization of the customer." The lawsuits also say that each carrier failed to follow its own privacy policy and "profited from the sale and unauthorized dissemination of Plaintiff and Class Members’. Securus' service relied on data from LocationSmart, a data aggregator that received location information from the carriers.įurther Reading Selling 911 location data is illegal-US carriers reportedly did it anyway The promises came after revelations that prison phone company Securus offered a service enabling law enforcement officers to locate most American cell phones within seconds. In June 2018, all four major carriers promised to stop selling their mobile customers' location information to third-party data brokers after a security problem leaked the real-time location of US cell phone users. Each lawsuit seeks damages for consumers "in an amount to be proven at trial." Carriers promised to stop data sales In all, that would be 300 million or more customers, as the lawsuits say the proposed classes consist of at least 100 million customers each for AT&T and Verizon and at least 50 million each for Sprint and T-Mobile. The proposed classes would include all of the four carriers' customers in the US between 20. ![]() This is an action seeking damages for AT&T gross failure to safeguard highly personal and private consumer geolocation data in violation of federal law. AT&T admittedly sells customer geolocation data to third-parties, including but not limited to data aggregators, who in turn, are able to use or resell the geolocation data with little or no oversight by AT&T. This action arises out of Defendant's collection of geolocation data and the unauthorized dissemination to third-parties of the geolocation data collected from its users' cell phones. The complaints seeking class action status and financial damages were filed last week against AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint in US District Court for the District of Maryland. The four suits, filed on behalf of customers by lawyers from the Z Law firm in Maryland, all begin with text nearly identical to this intro found in the suit against AT&T: The four major US wireless carriers are facing proposed class-action lawsuits accusing them of violating federal law by selling their customers' real-time location data to third parties. Getty Images | skaman306 reader comments 82 with
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