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T-Mobile Admits To Losing Data From 17 Million Consumers

Written by Evan Schuman
October 8th, 2008

In 2006, T-Mobile lost “a storage device with 17 million mobile telephone data records” that included “names, addresses and cell phone numbers, (and) the data, in some cases, also included the date of birth or E-mail addresses,” T-Mobile said in a statement this week. Why are we just hearing about this now? T-Mobile never bothered to announce it until the data started surfacing on the Web and German media started reporting it.

“We are very concerned by the fact that the incident from 2006 is relevant once again. Until now, we were under the assumption that the data in question had been recovered completely as part of the investigations of the public prosecutors’ office and were safe,” said Philipp Humm, Managing Director at T-Mobile Deutschland. Not to worry, though. T-Mobile said that it has now “intensified their security measures.” The first example the company cited: “complex passwords have in the meantime become a technical necessity.” Gosh, it was probably a necessity in 2006, too.

Posted in Mobile/Wireless/Contactless, Payment Systems, Security/Fraud
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One Comment | Read T-Mobile Admits To Losing Data From 17 Million Consumers

  1. TheConsumerJournal Says:
    October 24th, 2008 at 3:07 pm

    Thank you for posting this information. Please notify your readers, who are T-Mobile subscribers to make sure that they log onto the secured page of the site to pay their bill. Several times, I have notified the cell phone provider to inquire about the technology of their servers. As a 7-year T-mobile customer, the news is disheartening.

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