Refunds for 300M phone users sought in lawsuits over location-data sales

The four major US wireless carriers are facing proposed class-action lawsuits accusing them of violating federal law by selling their customers’ real-time location data to third parties. Despite the carriers’ promises, a Motherboard investigation found in January 2019 that “T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T are [still] selling access to their customers’ location data and that data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters and others not authorized to possess it, letting them track most phones in the country.” While it wasn’t mentioned in the lawsuits, the carriers’ data sales may have also violated Federal Communications Commission rules against misusing data intended for 911 emergency location services.

Source: arstechnica.com