T-Mobile confirms Britain’s biggest phone customer data breach

Personal details of thousands of mobile phone customers have been stolen and sold to rival firms in the biggest data breach of its kind, the government’s privacy watchdog said today.An employee of phone operator T-Mobile sold the customer records, including details of when contracts expired. The millions of items of information were sold on for “substantial sums”, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said. Rival networks and mobile phone retailers then tried to lure away T-Mobile customers by “cold calling”.To read this report in The Guardian in full, see:
www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/17/t-mobile-phone-data-privacyAlso see:T-Mobile staff sold personal data
Staff at mobile phone company T-Mobile passed on millions of records from thousands of customers to third party brokers, the firm has confirmed.Details emerged after the firm alerted the information commissioner, who said his office was preparing a prosecution.Christopher Graham said brokers had sold the data to other phone firms, who then cold-called the customers as their contracts were due to expire.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8364421.stmT-Mobile giant faces inquiry over sale of customer records
The private details of millions of mobile phone customers, including their numbers and addresses, have been sold illegally.Staff at T-Mobile passed the information to brokers who then sold it to rival phone companies. The companies then called customers as their contracts were due to expire to offer a better mobile phone deal.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6920143.ece