A lawsuit was recently filed against T-Mobile alleging that a store employee in Florida stole nude images from the customer’s phone during a trade-in.
The customer, William Nott, visited a T-Mobile store in Fort Lauderdale in July 2019 to trade in his used iPhone with the agreement that T-Mobile would wipe all personal information and data from the device. After trading in the phone, Nott was sent an email from one of T-Mobile’s employees stating: “I saw your pics on your phone. They were interesting.”
Nott was understandably surprised and contacted the employee, who initially denied having sent the email. However, after an internal investigation was conducted by T-Mobile, the store employee admitted to sending the email and was subsequently fired from his job.
T-Mobile has since apologized to Nott and sent him a replacement phone, but Nott is not satisfied citing violations of trust and privacy.
This is yet another example of the potential risks of entrusting sensitive information with a company. With the rise in technology, corporations with access to personal data should take every necessary security measure to protect the privacy of customers.
The lawsuit against T-Mobile could potentially set a precedent and make other companies more aware of their responsibility as custodians of customer data.