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| (photo courtesy- www.bbc.com) |
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has fined AT & T Inc with $25 million over data breaches at call centers in Mexico, Colombia and The Philippines. The FCC said that at least two employees confessed stealing of private information belonging to thousands of US customers which included their names, full and partial social security numbers and account-related data, known as customer proprietary network information (CPNI).
According to a senior FCC official, the details of about 280,000 people were taken during the data breaches. These series of data thefts took place in 2013 and 2014. The data was used by call center employees to request handset-unlock codes for AT&T phones and shared with third parties involved in trafficking stolen cell phones.
After this incident, AT&T has informed with all the affected customers and it has also terminated its business deal with the companies that operated the call centers where the data was stolen.
The company also quoted that it has changed its policies and strengthened operations to ensure that a similar data breach doesn’t occur.
The investigations began by the FCC in Mexico, last May, after it was given information about data going missing.
The $25 million fine is the highest that the FCC has ever issued for data security and privacy violations.
