The American mobile subsidiary T-Mobile US is facing a hefty fine of 60 million dollars (nearly 55 million euros) imposed for data protection violations. This was reported by the responsible US authority CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States), which oversees foreign investments in the USA.
Between August 2020 and June 2021, T-Mobile US reportedly allowed unauthorized access to sensitive data in some cases. According to the company, only a small number of requests by US investigative authorities were affected by these incidents. There was no breach of the IT systems, and the affected information was accessible exclusively within US security agencies.
The penalty imposed by Cfius is remarkable, as the authority usually does not disclose the names of affected companies. Additionally, it is the highest penalty that Cfius has imposed so far. The exact timing of the imposition was not disclosed.
CFIUS criticized T-Mobile US for not reporting some violations quickly enough, which hindered the agency's investigation. In a statement, T-Mobile explained that the issues were related to technical difficulties following the merger with the US mobile provider Sprint. However, these problems were resolved promptly. The subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom had acquired Sprint in 2020.
In NASDAQ trading, T-Mobile US shares temporarily dropped 1.58 percent to 193.39 US dollars following the news.