T-Mobile selling customer details: Enough grounds to end your contract?

Guys_Dad

PJB wrote: »

Again, clear as mud! Was it one customer or thousands?
Either way they were aware!
BINGO!:beer:

Being aware of a leak, knowing who did it are two different things. If an employee had stolen the whole of the customer database, then for the next 2 years the data would have been of use to a 3rd party. In other words, a single theft could have been used for up to 2 years.

That is much harder to trace than someone taking details of only the next 3 month's expiring contracts monthly.

And it still comes back to the fact that a breach of Data Protection law will not give you the right to cancel your contract. I am still waiting for someone to show me the exact words in the t&c that enable the contract to be cancelled.

Even if you can show some inconvenience in a 3rd party ringing you endlessly to move networks, that in itself is NOT sufficient for the contract to be cancelled unless you can show that they have broken the contract on their side. Look at the contract and see if there are words that would support that.

Remember that an illegal act has been carried out against the company. ( I say illegal as I am supposing that the employees have stolen data and sold it on)

nsabournemouth

PJB wrote: »

Had Tmobile sold the data then i would agree but the relevant paragraph is:

How we use personal information

It is not them that have used the data but a member of staffacting outside their duties etc and therefore they in my opinion will never be held Vicariously Liable by any Court in the land! But you never know!!!

I certainly would not advise anyone to or waste my own money trying but i wish good luck to anyone that does!

Doesn't matter if the cleaner did it. T-Mobile are liable as they hold the data. The company are those who have to make secure your dtails. If people are able to get hold of it then T-Mobile have failed to do so thus they are liable and their methods of keeping it secure will have to change. T-Mobile are the Data Controller as is any company

The company are reuired by law to keep it secure, this they have not done.

lawbunny

PJB wrote: »

Sorry, just reread above and noticed the apostrophe which i had not seen before.
My apologies

Hehe, that is quite okay.

AGAIN, there is nothing in the T&Cs that would address this situation - you cannot cancel based on T&Cs. BUT T&Cs are not the only way you can cancel a contract - you can cancel for other reasons - there are implied conditions to consumer contracts which will not be explicitly stated in the T&Cs.

PJB

nsabournemouth wrote: »

Doesn't matter if the cleaner did it. T-Mobile are liable as they hold the data. The company are those who have to make secure your dtails. If people are able to get hold of it then T-Mobile have failed to do so thus they are liable and their methods of keeping it secure will have to change. T-Mobile are the Data Controller as is any company

The company are reuired by law to keep it secure, this they have not done.

So for example tmobile prove that they had security cleared the relevant persons and they STOLE that data, do you think they are still responsible even though they would be and most likely are the victims of Crime themselves?

Although i accept that if tmob knew of this and done nothing to iinvestigate, report or secure the data then there might be a case, as i have said.

So if there practice was to post/send details on a disc (Inland Revenue style) or an employee had lost a disc, laptop etc (too many Gov organisations to mention style!) which they were supposed to have or transport etc as part of their job/duties etc, then again there may be a case but i very much doubt it. More likely to be employees with a USB, Disc, email, Network or other transfer.

This is the reason for for the aforementioned and in my opinion fair and reasonable case law.

PJB

lawbunny wrote: »

Hehe, that is quite okay.

AGAIN, there is nothing in the T&Cs that would address this situation - you cannot cancel based on T&Cs. BUT T&Cs are not the only way you can cancel a contract - you can cancel for other reasons - there are implied conditions to consumer contracts which will not be explicitly stated in the T&Cs.

In the position you detailed above i would look at the way i rescinded (apologies but i said i revoked the contract before, think i should of said rescinded) my contract. No service = breach!

PJB

Ps: Lawbunny, when did the leak of data happen, roughly?

also, look at this and see what strength of signal you should receive:

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/coverage/street-check/

Cerenia

I know personally, i've had people calling up t-mobile asking about other companies calling them about a year ago, maybe a couple of months more, but thats just me.

Llyllyll

Interesting...

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/privacy/our-promise/

PJB

Oops, tried to paste a pic, sorry!
And on the wrong thread!

lawbunny

The incident with the company working on behalf of 3 was last winter, I believe.

Although it was not T-Mobile as a company who sold the details they have a responsibility to ensure that customers' details are kept safe. Bearing in mind the nature of call centre employee turnover (is lots of casual staff who only work for a few months) they should be ensuring there is not way details can be stolen; to assist customers agents really only need to be able to access an image of the database on screen.

I remember after a previous minor breach we were all given 1 sheet of paper to take notes if we needed to (ie makes/models of handsets in aiding with technical enquiries) and this 1 sheet of paper was collected by managers after shift and shredded. We were not allowed notepads, or to take any paper home etc. And we were not allowed to access any websites where we could save data, ie facebook, hotmail (although there were actually ways around this on the computer systems), and we were unable to print off any customer details.

Basically, employees should not have been able to note ANY customer details and remove them from the premises at all. Clearly, this something has slipped. It is T-Mobile's responsibility to ensure that all of these steps are in place to protect customers' data.