T-Mobile Claimed Selling Location Data Without Consent is Legal - Judges Disagree (arstechnica.com)
- Reference: 0178809058
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/08/21/160246/t-mobile-claimed-selling-location-data-without-consent-is-legal---judges-disagree
- Source link: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/t-mobile-claimed-selling-location-data-without-consent-is-legal-judges-disagree/
> The Federal Communications Commission last year fined T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon, saying the carriers illegally shared access to customers' location information without consent and did not take reasonable measures to protect that sensitive data against unauthorized disclosure. The fines relate to sharing of real-time location data that was revealed in 2018, but it took years for the FCC to finalize the penalties.
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> The three carriers appealed the rulings in three different courts, and the first major decision was handed down Friday. A three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled unanimously against T-Mobile and its subsidiary Sprint. "Every cell phone is a tracking device," the ruling begins. "To receive service, a cell phone must periodically connect with the nearest tower in a wireless carrier's network. Each time it does, it sends the carrier a record of the phone's location and, by extension, the location of the customer who owns it. Over time, this information becomes an exhaustive history of a customer's whereabouts and 'provides an intimate window into [that] person's life.'"
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/t-mobile-claimed-selling-location-data-without-consent-is-legal-judges-disagree/
Probably a short-lived victory (Score:2)
Is there actually a law that protects consumers here? Aside from California, because I think they have something specific. It seems like whether this is considered illegal or not depends on the whims of whoever is currently appointed as judge.
Cellular communication requires precise time, usually involving GPS. Cell towers have to know more or less exactly where you are for communication to work efficiently. Who you are and where you are are "their" data by this line of reasoning. It's something that sh
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Indeed. Their fix will *not* be to stop doing it. Instead, they'll send an updated TOS that you must agree to, in order to keep doing business with them.
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That would be the TMobile MyLife app
Re:Probably a short-lived victory (Score:5, Informative)
Suggest reading the decision: [1]https://media.cadc.uscourts.go... [uscourts.gov] It's pretty easy to follow, and it makes clear how the Court established what the law required telecom companies to do. IANAL, but I'd summarize the Court's summary as "Customer location data, whether or not they are actively on a call, is covered by this law. Therefore telcos, and companies they provide location data to, must have consent. There are a few exceptions where location can be provided without prior consent, particularly for emergency services/911 calls." The problem here was not directly T-Mobile/Sprint conduct, but rather conduct by companies that bought data from T-Mobile/Sprint. Some of those companies violated their contracts on allowable use. The FCC held that T-Mobile/Sprint failed to adequately monitor the terms of the contract to make sure the other companies were actually doing what they promised. That was particularly egregious failure after the bad practices by subcontractors were revealed in the press. So this was a 'failure to supervise/audit the terms of the contract'.
[1] https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2025/08/24-1224-2130255.pdf
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In regards to Consent, this is given in almost all apps that users install on their phones, gathering this data from 2nd and 3rd parties, to the consumer-telco relationship this judgment rules, on is what Palantir, etc... do
jmo
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I dunno about Android, but on iOS there's a means to control whether an app has access to location data from the phone. I usually say "no."
But that is clearly different from location generated by Telcos from cell tower data. That data is under control of the Telco, not the handset. The Telco, or agents using that Telco data, must have explicit consent, as required by the law, to use location data from cell towers.
Class action time! (Score:2)
I'm looking forward to the check for $3.18 that I'll be receiving in several years for this.
T-Mobile needs to update it;s game plan (Score:3)
They really need to take pilgrimage to the holy city on the hill and make an offering (preferably in real gold) to the high holy potentate for absolution.
T-Mobile CEO needs to attend the next Trump ... (Score:2)
$1million donation dinner. This ruling will then be toast thanks to an executive order a week afterwards.
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> Keep in mind that CIA funding was behind Google's founding....
Yes, the world's biggest Privacy Rapists are always in cahoots.
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When Google was founded, they were only a search engine. Android phones didn't come until years later when they stole the idea from Apple.
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The idea long preceded Apple's implementation. I think there were car-based implementations in the 1950's.
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The smartphones we have today were copied from Apple. The only real comparison before then are Blackberries and Windows phones, both of which are very different implementations.
Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO at the time, was on Apple's board during the time Apple created the iPhone. He was later fired from Apple's board for conflict of interest. It's well known that Google copied other products from companies such as Microsoft. It's clear that Google took the ideas for it's smartphone from Apple.
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I used to work in GIS in the 90's, and attended a presentation on processes for census counts that highlighted the difficulties in tracking some transitory populations
The solution that I offered was to give everybody a free cellphone (outrageous idea at the time), so you would know where they were and what they were up to every hour of the day
Some laughed, others agreed, almost twenty years later the Obama Phone brought it to fruition, to think that it is not happening with commercial carriers is just silly