Has Sprint Been Selling Mobile Location Data?

Sprint has said that they no longer sell mobile location data to third parties, but some consumers are skeptical.

Did Sprint Sell Mobile Location Data?

In 2018, it was revealed that cellular providers may have sold consumer location data to third party companies, known as data aggregators.

The news broke after the New York Times revealed that prison company Securus Technologies provides a service to law enforcement that allows officers to track people’s cell phones. This service relies on information from data aggregators who buy consumer location data from cellphone carriers such as Sprint.

This subject came to light in court documents during the prosecution of a former Mississippi sheriff and resulted in a ripple effect of concern about cellular providers wrongfully sharing customer information.

After the news broke, consumers called on mobile providers to stop the practice. By June 2018, all four major cellular providers, including Sprint, promised to stop selling customers’ mobile location data to data aggregators.

Does Sprint Still Sell Mobile Location Data?

Although Sprint vowed to stop the practice, it may have been an empty one. A January 2019 investigation by Vice’s Motherboard revealed that it was still possible to get ahold of consumer location data.

Mobile location services are reportedly still being offered by companies and routinely used by bail bondsmen and bounty hunters. These services purportedly indicate that cellular carriers such as Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T are still sharing consumer location data. This practice goes against promises these carriers made to stop doing so.

Following renewed consumer outrage, Sprint released a statement saying it would end its relationship with data aggregators.

“Last year we decided to end our arrangements with data aggregators, but assessed that the negative impacts to customers for services like roadside assistance and bank fraud alerts/protection that would result required a different approach,” a Sprint spokesperson said in a statement to CNET.

“We implemented new, more stringent safeguards to help protect customer location data, but as a result of recent events, we have decided to end our arrangements with data aggregators.”

Unfortunately, it may be hard to tell whether or not Sprint is following through on its promises this time – especially considering the history of failing to comply with customer requests. Some consumers have taken matters into their own hands by filing lawsuits against cellular providers for allegedly selling consumer data to third parties.

“It would be bad if this was the first time we learned about it. It’s not. Every major wireless carrier pledged to end this kind of data sharing after I exposed this practice last year. Now it appears these promises were little more than worthless spam in their customers’ inboxes,” Sen. Ron Wyden told Motherboard.

Wyden, who was instrumental in breaking the 2018 Securus scandal with the New York Times, is reportedly proposing legislation that would prevent the sharing of personal data with cellular carriers.

Join a Free Cell Phone Location Data Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you had a phone number through AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, or Sprint and made a call with that number between Apr. 26, 2015 and Feb. 9, 2019, you may be eligible to join this cell phone location data  class action lawsuit investigation.

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This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.