U.S. wireless carriers face $200 million in FCC fines for mishandling customer data

Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T can definitely hear the FCC now.

The nation's largest mobile providers are facing potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in fines after the Federal Communications Commission determined the companies didn't adequately protect customers' location data. At issue was the practice of selling customers' real-time location data to third parties — data which then ended up in the hands of bounty hunters, debt collectors, and other questionable parties.

The news, reported by the Wall Street Journal, follows a Jan. 31 announcement by the FCC that at least one phone carrier had violated federal privacy protections. According to Reuters, the FCC is set to propose fines of $200 million in total for the four mobile carriers tomorrow.

But this may be too little, too late. Senator Ron Wyden (D - Oregon) blasted the FCC for failing to proactively protect consumers and, instead, only reacting to investigative reporting on the issue done by the likes of Motherboard.

"If reports are true, then [FCC Chairman] Ajit Pai has failed to protect consumers at every turn," wrote Wyden. "This issue came to light after my office and dedicated journalists discovered how wireless carriers shared Americans’ locations without consent. He investigated only after public pressure mounted."

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In May of last year, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile were hit with a class-action lawsuit alleging the companies violated the law in selling customers' location data. In other words, the $200 million in proposed FCC fines could be just the beginning of what the mobile carriers will be forced to pay out.

Importantly, however, it's worth noting that the carriers may end up getting off without paying anything close to the reported $200 million number. That's because, as the Journal notes, all four carriers will likely fight tooth and nail to avoid such heavy penalties.

SEE ALSO: FCC confirms wireless carriers broke federal law by selling location data

We reached out to Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile for comment, but received no immediate response. A Sprint spokesperson did get back to us, but only to say that they had "nothing to share on this right now."

Perhaps the carriers' representatives are all too busy checking the couch cushions for a few hundred million to formulate a response.