T-Mobile employees heavily fined for stealing customer data
by Steven Mostyn - Jun 13 2011, 07:00
Been caught stealin' Image: T-Mobile.
Let’s hope the following slice of news is a sign of things to come and serves as a warning for those responsible for the current spate of hack attacks spreading across the Internet:
A couple of light-fingered former T-Mobile employees have been slapped with fines totalling some 73,000 GBP (approx. $120,000 USD) after they were caught stealing and selling sensitive data connected to T-mobile customers.
The pilfering duo in question, David Turley (39) and Darren Hames (40), were brought to justice by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) late last week and will now be forced to cough up respective fines of 45,000 GBP and 28,700 GBP for their crimes.
The pair will also have to shoulder all charges related to the case, with a percentage of the combined repayments filtered into the ICO under the Proceeds of Crime Act. The office’s financial injection will reportedly be used to help train its steadily expanding investigative team.
The ICO’s success in prosecuting Birmingham-based Turley and Staffordshire-based Hames is the culmination of an investigation dating back to December of 2008.
According to the prosecution, Hames, who served as a sales manager with T-Mobile, was discovered selling contract renewal dates, customer names, addresses, phone numbers and emails to former colleague Turley—who was then selling the data on to third party ‘cold calling’ specialists.
Both men have been given a conditional discharge by the courts and a full report detailing the case will soon be released on the official ICO website.
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