Collaborate Disseminate
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today levied fines totaling nearly $200 million against the four major carriers — including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon — for illegally sharing access to customers’ location information without consent. Continue reading FCC Fines Major U.S. Wireless Carriers for Selling Customer Location Data
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today proposed fines of more than $200 million against the nation’s four largest wireless carriers for selling access to their customers’ location information without taking adequate precautions to prevent unauthorized access to that data. While the fines would be among the largest the FCC has ever levied, critics say the penalties don’t go far enough to deter wireless carriers from continuing to sell customer location data. Continue reading FCC Proposes to Fine Wireless Carriers $200M for Selling Customer Location Data
Government Payment Service Inc. — a company used by thousands of U.S. state and local governments to accept online payments for everything from traffic citations and licensing fees to bail payments and court-ordered fines — has leaked more than 14 million customer records dating back at least six years, including names, addresses, phone numbers and the last four digits of the payer’s credit card. Continue reading GovPayNow.com Leaks 14M+ Records
The four major U.S. wireless carriers today detailed a new initiative that may soon let Web sites eschew passwords and instead authenticate visitors by leveraging data elements unique to each customer’s phone and mobile subscriber account, such as location, customer reputation, and physical attributes of the device. Here’s a look at what’s coming, and the potential security and privacy trade-offs of trusting the carriers to handle online authentication on your behalf. Continue reading U.S. Mobile Giants Want to be Your Online Identity
The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that the government needs to obtain a court-ordered warrant to gather location data on mobile device users. The decision is a major development for privacy rights, but experts say it may have limited bearing on the selling of real-time customer location data by the wireless carriers to third-party companies. Continue reading Supreme Court: Police Need Warrant for Mobile Location Data
Supreme Court decision requires law enforcement to obtain a warrant to gain access to cellphone records for tracking citizens. Continue reading Supreme Court Bolsters Mobile-Phone Privacy Rights
Verizon and other telcos have been selling phone location data to companies catering to marketers and low level law enforcement. Now, Verizon says it is cutting ties with certain firms that abused that data access. Continue reading Verizon Says It Will Stop Selling US Phone Data That Ended Up in Hands of Cops
The past month has seen one blockbuster revelation after another about how our mobile phone and broadband providers have been leaking highly sensitive customer information, including real-time location data and customer account details. In the wake of … Continue reading Why Is Your Location Data No Longer Private?
LocationSmart, a U.S. based company that acts as an aggregator of real-time data about the precise location of mobile phone devices, has been leaking this information to anyone via a buggy component of its Web site — without the need for any password or other form of authentication or authorization — KrebsOnSecurity has learned. The company took the vulnerable service offline early this afternoon after being contacted by KrebsOnSecurity, which verified that it could be used to reveal the location of any AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile or Verizon phone in the United States to an accuracy of within a few hundred yards. Continue reading Tracking Firm LocationSmart Leaked Location Data for Customers of All Major U.S. Mobile Carriers in Real Time Via Its Web Site
A hacker has provided Motherboard with the login details for a company that buys phone location data from major telecom companies and then sells it to law enforcement. Continue reading Hacker Breaches Securus, the Company That Helps Cops Track Phones Across the US