Personal data sold by T-Mobile

18 November 2009 9:43 GMT / By Duncan Geere

T-Mobile has admitted guilt in recent news that an unnamed mobile phone operator had been caught selling personal data about customers to competitors.

Staff apparently passed on millions of records from thousands of customers to third party brokers, who then cold-called people who were near the ends of their contracts. The issue was discovered after customers complained about those very calls. A T-Mobile spokesman said the data had been sold "without our knowledge".

The network faces large fines from the Information Commissioner, who also took the unusual step of calling for the staff members responsible to be handed a prison sentence instead of the ordinary £5000 fine that comes with a violation of Britain’s Data Protection Act.

Are you a T-Mobile customer? How does this make you feel? Let us know in the comments.

Via: news.bbc.co.uk

Full tags

Phones, Mobile phone industry, Biz, Information Commissioner