Page 4 - ARUBA TODAY

A4 U.S. NEWS
Saturday 1 February 2020
FCC: At least 1 phone company

broke law by sharing location

By MATT O'BRIEN an investigation. The FCC's major companies, Verizon,
AP Technology Writer enforcement bureau be- AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile,
At least one U.S. phone gan investigating following to pledge to stop provid-
company likely broke the 2018 reports that U.S. wire- ing users' location informa-
law by sharing data that less providers were selling tion to data brokers, step-
can pinpoint the location real-time phone location ping back from a business
of smartphone users, the information to outside data practice that had drawn
Federal Communications aggregation firms without criticism for endangering
Commission said Friday. phone users' knowledge or privacy. A statement Friday
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said consent. Location-tracking by FCC Commissioner Jes-
In this April 12, 2019 file photo, Federal Communications in a letter to Congress that services can use the data sica Rosenworcel said the
Commission Chairman Ajit Pai speaks during an event in
Washington. one or more wireless com- to keep tabs on packages safety and privacy of mil-
Associated Press panies apparently violated and vehicles or create per- lions of Americans was at
federal law and could be sonalized marketing pitch- risk and "it's a shame that
subject to penalties. es, but it can also be used it took so long for the FCC
He didn't name any com- by bounty hunters or stalk- to reach a conclusion that
panies but said the com- ers to identify the where- was so obvious." Rosenwor-
mission would decide soon abouts of nearly any phone cel is a Democrat; Republi-
on actions, now that the in the U.S. within seconds. cans have a 3-2 majority at
agency has completed The reports led the four the agency.q