Staff working for the mobile communications giant T-Mobile have found themselves in hot water after it was discovered that they were selling details of customers to other companies without permission.
Over recent years we have all become increasingly conscious about security breaches and how these can adversely affect our lives. Many customers of the mobile communications giant T-Mobile may be worried right now, after it was revealed this week that employees working for the mobile phone network provider had been selling the details of customers to other companies.
The company is part of Deutsche Telekom, and T-Mobile confirmed this week that some staff members had indeed been selling the details of mobile phone customers to brokers working for other mobile phone companies. The company said that employees did this without the knowledge or consent of the firm, and that once the problem came to light it contacted the Information Commissioner’s Office right away to get the matter investigated.
The Information Commissioner has since confirmed that mobile phone customer data was sold to other brokers for ’substantial sums of money’. He said that the details of thousands of customers had been sold and that there should be a prison sentence in place to stop people from engaging in this sort of activity.
T-Mobile issued a statement reading: “While it is deeply regrettable that customer information has been misappropriated in this way, we have proactively supported the ICO to help stamp out what is a problem for the whole industry.” Officials from the firm went on to state that other parts of the mobile phone sector had also been involved.
Source – Zdnet & Reuters
