The decision comes after lawmakers called on the FCC to investigate privacy breaches.
Background: A recent investigation by tech magazine Motherboard found some US mobile carriers (T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T) provide customers’ location data to third-party trackers. In 2018, a congressional probe also found some of Verizon’s location data to be misused by prison officials to spy on American citizens.
What’s new: On Thursday, AT&T told tech magazine CNet it is ending its data sharing agreement with “location aggregators”. It had already closed some of them in 2018, but now it aims to have none in place by March, “even those with clear consumer benefits”, due to recent “misuse of location services”. On the same day, the CEO of T-Mobile US made a similar statement, saying they aim to complete the shutdown by the same month.
Why does it matter? This happens at a time when, in Europe, the discussion about e-Privacy rules is still lively. The e-Privacy Directive regulates how telcos can use metadata such as location information, among other issues; its reform is proving difficult, due to divisions between EU countries and to the interests at stake. The news coming from the US are likely to provide ammunition to those who want a more restrictive, privacy-friendly framework, rather than those who want to give telcos and tech companies more freedom to use this data. It also shows how US legislators are giving increasing importance to privacy, and are now taking an unprecedented, interventionist stance.
