AT&T to pay record $25M to settle with FCC over privacy breach at call centers
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Telecommunications giant AT&T has agreed to pay $25 million to settle a FCC probe over privacy breaches at call centers in Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines.
The FCC said the settlement is the largest it has ever obtained in a privacy case, reports the Los Angeles Times (sub. req.).
The pact also requires AT&T to notify customers and pay for credit monitoring.
The FCC said employees at three AT&T call centers accepted payment, between November 2013 and April 2014, to provide names and partial Social Security numbers for hundreds of thousands of U.S. customers. The information could then be used, and apparently was used, to unlock AT&T phones, according to the article
AT&T has since improved its security practices.
“Protecting customer privacy is critical to us. We hold ourselves and our vendors to a high standard,” said the company in a written statement provided to the LA Times. “Unfortunately, a few of our vendors did not meet that standard and we are terminating vendor sites as appropriate.”
