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LAWSUITS NEWS & LEGAL INFORMATION

AT&T to Pay $25M to Settle Massive Data Breach Lawsuit


This is a settlement for the Media/Telecom lawsuit.

New York, NY: AT&T will pay $25 million to resolve claims the phone carrier failed to adequately safeguard personal data of approximately 300,000 customers. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the settlement of its data breach lawsuit this week. The data was stolen from call centers in Mexico, Colombia and the Philippines.

According to the FCC, employees at call centers used by AT&T in the three countries accessed records belonging to roughly 280,000 U.S. customers without authorization (Getty). Those records were accessed without authorization, in order to obtain names, full or partial Social Security numbers and other protected account-related data. Those data are also known as customer proprietary network information, which require requests for handset unlock codes for AT&T mobile phones.

The FCC alleged in its complaint, that the call center employees then provided that data to unauthorized third parties, which included an entity that went by the alias El Pelon in Mexico, who appeared to have been trafficking in stolen or secondary market phones that they wanted to unlock. That entity allegedly used the information to make more than 290,000 unlock requests through AT&T's website.

In addition to the $25 million penalty for the alleged violations of Sections 222 and 201 of the Communications Act, AT&T will must also improve its privacy and data security practices by appointing a senior compliance manager who is a certified privacy professional, conducting a privacy risk assessment, implementing an information security program, preparing an appropriate compliance manual and regularly training employees on the company' privacy policies and the applicable privacy legal authorities, the FCC said.

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Published on Apr-8-15


READER COMMENTS

Posted by

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I got a letter about it but haven't hurdy any thing yet

Posted by

on
yes, and I am still getting calls and emails from china, correa ,Philippians and Nigeria. asking for me personally, it's kinda scary.

Posted by

on
We have unnone callers and calls all day and night

Posted by

on
AT&T didnt protect my information and allow direct tv to go into mu accountand take money out even though had already paued AT&T

Posted by

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AT&T did not notify me that my cell phone. Family plan - allows the family member to acess my messages buy changing my password and lock me out of all my messages including patient - Dr. And attorney - client. I takes to AT&T they said it's not there responsibility to inform my that my phone information is not private and not their responsibility to. Disclose to me that via AT&T website my password can /was changed and I was unable to retrieve my phone messages - I had no idea this was At&t policy and was never sent a single disclosure .

Posted by

on
I believe I'm a victim in many of these claims. Can someone please notify me regarding my right?

PLEASE CONTACT ME THANKS..

Posted by

on
I have complained to ATT many times, i have traded phones, gought new phone, still having problems, dsta had been runn up, caught someone actually talking on my phone. Calls ste mafe that i disnt make. Pictures are stolen. Unable to use icloud.

Posted by

on
I believe I'm a victim in many of these claims. Can someone please notify me regarding my right?

Posted by

on
I believe I'm a victim in many of these claims. Can someone please notify me regarding my right?

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