T-Mobile is being sued in a class action lawsuit after a data breach in August 2021 reportedly released the data for over 50 million of the company’s customers. Reports indicate that Social Security numbers were released because of the breach.
Lawsuit Details
The lawsuit has been filed as Espanoza v. T-Mobile USA and Daruwalla vs. T-Mobile.
After the breach, T-Mobile offered customers free credit monitoring service.
The lawsuits allege that T-Mobile violated the California Consumer Privacy Act. The Act allows any California citizen the right to see all the information a company has stored on them and to see a full list of every third party who can see the information.
The lawsuits say T-Mobile also violated the Washington State Consumer Protection Act through their poor data security.
In the class action lawsuit filed in the state of Washington, the plaintiffs claim that identities are “at considerable risk” because of alleged “negligent conduct” by T-Mobile causing private data to be “in the hands of data thieves.”
The lawsuit says that the credit monitoring offer puts the burden on T-Mobile’s customers, instead of the multi-billion dollar company where it belongs.
Breach Origins
T-Mobile began investigating the breach after someone claimed to be selling the stolen data in an online forum.
“T-Mobile USA. Full customer info,” the seller told Vice. They claimed they got access to the data through “backdoored servers.”
The seller was asking for 6 bitcoin ($270,000) for the data.
One of the first political bloggers in the world, Oliver Willis has operated OliverWillis.com since 2000. Contributor at Media Matters for America and The American Independent. Follow on Twitter at @owillis. Full bio.