T-Mobile Customer Details Were Sold to Rival Company

T-Mobile UK has admitted that some of its staff may have sold customer details to a rival network.

Investigators at the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) have been working with the mobile phone company after the firm suggested employees allegedly sold details relating to customers' mobile phone contracts, including their contract expiry dates.

It is being alleged that the information was being sold on to the service provider's competitors whose agents were using the material to cold call customers prior to contract expiry dates to offer them an alternative contract.

The service provider has alleged that many thousands of customer account details have been unlawfully obtained.

The ICO has investigated and it appears that the information has been sold on to several brokers and that substantial amounts of money have changed hands. The ICO has obtained several search warrants and attended a number of premises, and is now preparing a prosecution file.

The Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham said: "Many people will have wondered why and how they are being contacted by someone they do not know just before their existing phone contract is about to expire. We are considering the evidence with a view to prosecuting those responsible and I am keen to go much further and close down the entire unlawful industry in personal data. But, we will only be able to do this if blaggers and others who trade in personal data face the threat of a prison sentence."

T-Mobile's German division also suffered a customer data loss last year which resulted in a tightening up of procedures within the company.

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