EFF Filed Lawsuit In California Against AT&T To Stop Sales Of Wireless Customers' Realtime Geolocations

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced on July 16th that it had filed:

"... a class action lawsuit on behalf of AT&T customers in California to stop the telecom giant and two data location aggregators from allowing numerous entities—including bounty hunters, car dealerships, landlords, and stalkers—to access wireless customers’ real-time locations without authorization. An investigation by Motherboard earlier this year revealed that any cellphone user’s precise, real-time location could be bought for just $300. The report showed that carriers, including AT&T, were making this data available to hundreds of third parties without first verifying that users had authorized such access. AT&T not only failed to obtain its customers’ express consent, making matters worse, it created an active marketplace that trades on its customers’ real-time location data..."

The lawsuit, Scott, et al. v. AT&T Inc., et al., was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California. The suit seeks money damages and an injunction against AT&T and the named location data aggregators: LocationSmart and Zumigo. The suit alleges AT&T violated the Federal Communications Act and engaged in deceptive practices under California’s unfair competition law. It also alleges that AT&T, LocationSmart, and Zumigo have violated California’s constitutional, statutory, and common law rights to privacy. The EFF is represented by Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht LLP.