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A ‘landmark’ ruling against T-Mobile earlier this year could see carriers held responsible for their employees’ breaches of consumer privacy.

By: Harry Baldock, Total Telecom

A lawsuit was filed against AT&T on Monday arguing that the telco is liable for the actions of an employee who stole nude photos from a customer’s mobile phone.

The case explains that a female customer brought her iPhone to an AT&T store in Los Angeles as part of a routine upgrade. The indicted employee then accessed explicit photos of the customer and distributed them without consent.

The legal filing accuses AT&T of failing to implement sufficient security measures to protect its customers data.

Lawsuits of this kind are nothing new; in fact, all three of the big US wireless carriers (AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon) have faced similar court cases in recent years, according to CNBC.

However, in the past these lawsuits have typically been dismissed quickly, with the carriers successfully arguing that they are not legally responsible for the actions of employees acting outside of their job remit.

But the tide could be changing. Earlier this year, a similar court case against T-Mobile was allowed to proceed by a judge, who ruled that the operator could feasibly be liable for the harm done to its customer.

This “landmark” decision “sets an important precedent”, according to Laura Hecht-Felalla of CA Goldberg, the lawfirm responsible for both the T-Mobile and AT&T cases.

“We intend to continue to try to hold phone companies accountable for situations like this where their employees violate customer privacy during phone trade-ins or other transactions at the stores,” said Hecht-Felella. “There’s a lot of different ways in which they can try to prevent this from happening and it’s clear whatever they’re currently doing is not adequate.”

Reports suggest that T-Mobile has faced at least eight lawsuits alleging the theft of sensitive customer images over the past decade.

“For almost a decade, T-Mobile customers across the United States have regularly reported, evidenced by news stories and lawsuits, instances of retail store employees stealing their intimate videos, explicit photos, and bank accounts,” read the lawsuit. “Nevertheless, T-Mobile has failed to implement any common-sense security hardware or software to protect consumers from their data and privacy being exploited during ordinary transactions at the T-Mobile store.”

T-Mobile rejects this argument, noting that the employee in question was from a third-party retailer and that the company has “policies and procedures in place to protect customer information”.

Of course, the judge’s decision to allow the T-Mobile case to proceed with the case does not mean that the AT&T case will do likewise. However, it does set a valuable precedent that could encourage more injured parties to take legal action, potentially driving the telcos to implement more stringent security measures during these in-store interactions.

“That’s what litigation does. It says you can be held responsible for your negligence,” said CA Goldberg founder Carrie Goldberg. “And presumably that will induce the phone companies to innovate on their safety and privacy protections for consumers at their stores.”

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