D.C. Circuit Upholds FCC Data Breach Fine Against T-Mobile
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected T-Mobile’s challenge of an $80 million data breach forfeiture in a unanimous opinion Friday. The court rejected the carriers’ arguments that the FCC forfeiture process violates the Seventh Amendment right…
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to a jury trial and that the customer real-time location data involved in the breach wasn’t covered by FCC rules. In the opinion, Judge Florence Pan said language in the Communications Act that allows entities to go before a jury if they don’t pay their FCC forfeitures satisfied the requirements of the Seventh Amendment. “The statutory procedure at issue allowed the Carriers to obtain a jury trial before suffering any legal consequences,” Pan wrote. “They chose not to wait for such a trial and therefore waived that right.” The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals took the opposite stance in a ruling on a similar data breach forfeiture against AT&T in April, vacating a $57 million fine because the FCC’s processes didn’t sufficiently guarantee a jury trial. The D.C. Circuit Friday also rejected carrier arguments that the data involved wasn’t covered under the rule or that the FCC erred by considering the breaches as ongoing violations. “The penalties assessed by the Commission were lawful and reasonably accounted for the Carriers’ ability to pay and the egregiousness of their conduct.”