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AT&T Hit With $25 Million Fine in Privacy Case

Apr 8, 2015  •  Post A Comment

AT&T has agreed to pay a $25 million penalty to resolve a case in which the company is accused of consumer privacy violations, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The case, which has been under investigation by the Federal Communications Commission, involves call centers in Mexico, Colombia and the Philippines.

“The FCC’s largest-ever enforcement action on privacy and data security follows an investigation started last May into a 168-day data breach,” WSJ reports. “Three employees at a call center in Mexico were allegedly paid by third parties to obtain customer information between November 2013 and April 2014.”

The employees reportedly gained access to more than 68,000 accounts, pulling names and other data such as the last four digits of Social Security numbers.

Said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler: “As the nation’s expert agency on communications networks, the commission cannot — and will not — stand idly by when a carrier’s lax data-security practices expose the personal information of hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable Americans to identity theft and fraud.”

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