Verizon and AT&T will stop selling your phone’s location to data brokers

Verizon and AT&T will stop selling your phone’s location to data brokers

https://ift.tt/2JYL2pK

Verizon and AT&T have promised to stop selling their mobile customers’ location information to third-party data brokers, following a security problem that leaked the real-time location of US cell phone users.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) recently urged all four major carriers to stop the practice, and today he published responses he received from Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile USA, and Sprint.

Wyden’s statement praised Verizon for “taking quick action to protect its customers’ privacy and security,” but he criticized the other carriers for not making the same promise.

“After my investigation and follow-up reports revealed that middlemen are selling Americans’ location to the highest bidder without their consent or making it available on insecure Web portals, Verizon did the responsible thing and promptly announced it was cutting these companies off,” Wyden said. “In contrast, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint seem content to continuing to sell their customers’ private information to these shady middle men, Americans’ privacy be damned.”

AT&T changed its stance shortly after Wyden’s statement. “Our top priority is to protect our customers’ information, and, to that end, we will be ending our work with aggregators for these services as soon as practical in a way that preserves important, potential lifesaving services like emergency roadside assistance,” AT&T said in a statement to Ars.

Sen. Wyden recognized AT&T’s change on Twitter and called on T-Mobile and Sprint to follow suit.

Sprint told Ars that it has “nothing additional to share.” We also asked T-Mobile for a response to Wyden’s statement and will update this story if the carrier answers. T-Mobile told Wyden that it will continue the data aggregation program but that it has “appropriate controls” in place.

Privacy invasion

It was revealed last month that prison phone company Securus offers a service enabling law enforcement officers to locate most American cell phones within seconds. Securus’ service relies on data from LocationSmart, a data aggregator. It was also reported that a LocationSmart bug could have allowed anyone to surreptitiously track the real-time whereabouts of cell phone users.

Tech

via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com

June 19, 2018 at 01:21PM

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.