T-Mobile U.S. fined $60m for data protection violations

United States (U.S.) telecom provider T-Mobile has been fined 60 million dollars due to data protection violations, according to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (Cfius).

T-Mobile U.S. has allowed unauthorised access to sensitive data between August 2020 and June 2021 in some cases, the agency said on Wednesday.

T-Mobile U.S. is a subsidiary of Germany’s Deutsche Telekom,

The company stated that a small number of requests from investigative authorities were affected.

It added that there had been no breach of IT systems and the information had only been accessible within U.S. security agencies.

It is unusual for Cfius to name a company that has been fined and this was the highest fine imposed by the agency to date.

It was imposed this year, although the exact timing was not specified.

Cfius said T-Mobile U.S. had not reported some violations quickly enough, which complicated the agency’s investigations.

“Several years ago, we experienced technical issues during our post-merger integration with Sprint that affected information shared from a small number of law enforcement information requests out of the hundreds of thousands process each year.

“This was not a breach or intrusion and no bad actor was involved and acquired Sprint in 2020,” T-Mobile U.S. said in a statement.

“We take matters like this seriously. The information never left the U.S. law enforcement community.

“We also reported this in a timely manner, and the issue was quickly addressed,” the statement said.

“We are glad to have reached a resolution and look forward to continuing to work cooperatively with the law enforcement community to help keep the country and our customers safe.”