Slashdot Mirror
T-Mobile UK Employees Sold Customers' Information
angry tapir writes "Workers at T-Mobile UK have been selling customer data to brokers who worked for the competition, according to T-Mobile and the UK's Information Commissioner's Office. Criminal charges are being prepared. 'Many thousands' of customers' account details, millions of records, were sold to several brokers for substantial amounts of money, the ICO said. In an announcement (PDF) from the ICO, the agency does not name the operator involved, but T-Mobile acknowledged that it had alerted ICO about the data breach. The BBC reports that after the other mobile operators said they were not the subject of the investigation, T-Mobile confirmed its involvement."
Well in nations that have a government willing to keep telco's in line, like in Australia.
Waiting for the inevitable extremist right wing mod down for suggesting that regulation can actually help the consumer by making sure businesses adhere to the rules.
OK, things aren't perfect here in Australia, but abuse is kept to a minimum as it only takes one phone call to the TIO (Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman) to sort things out if my telco screws me and if the TIO finds merit in my claim the Telco is ordered to pay for the TIO's investigation as well as any punishment that is handed out.
I'm with Three (Hutchinson) here in Oz and apart from the gratuitous advertising which is free (fair enough, I haven't asked them to stop yet) serivce has been adequate, all fees and charges were made known up front and were also itemised on my bill.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I'm a T-Mobile Customer. I think they did the right thing, coming forward when it was obvious they had a data breach.
Data breach? That was a few months ago when they lost their entire customer database along with credit card numbers. This time they sold their data.
T-Mobile are the worst phone network going. Their coverage sucks, their customer service sucks, they are willing to abuse their own customers to make a few quid. The only thing going for them is the price.
Interestingly, some of the UK mobile operators have bankers licences and are therefore governed by the FSA (financial services authority). The FSA defines a PEP marker (Politically Exposed Person) on records and these typically have greater sensitivity than the rest and each access is audited. Anyone who thinks they are 'famous' can become a PEP on request - politicians, david beckham's, recognised government officials, company execs are using this device more and more.
Whilst it might seem like a good idea to register yourself as a PEP (e.g. I'm famous on slashdot), it can be a pain in the arse because some banks etc will not send out new credit cards directly to a PEP.
Using alias's is illegal if done incorrectly. Using an alias as a "stage name" is OK for celebs, but not so great for politicians. Also, it's not a great idea to buy a phone contract with an (!deedpoll) alias.