Privacy scandal
October 14, 2009
Deutsche Telekom received another blow to its public image this week after the German news website Spiegel Online reported that data records from hundreds of thousands of customers, including bank account information, had ended up in the hands of call center employees in Turkey.
At the beginning of October, Deutsche Telekom revealed that four external partners had passed customer data illegally. The telecoms giants said it had fined these companies and ended the partnerships.
Security, spying concerns
According to Spiegel, the data was used by Turkish call centers claiming to represent Deutsche Telekom to sell new contracts to the customers. The call centers would then offer these new contracts to Deutsche Telekom in exchange for a commission. In some cases a call center could rake in more than 100,000 euros ($150,000) in illegal commissions.
This is only the most recent example in a string of privacy scandals at the German telecommunications giant. In Octobr 2008, Deutsche Telekom admitted that holes in its security system could have compromised the bank account numbers and other personal information of some 30 million Telekom mobile phone users. The company had no indication of a possible theft of the information.
In addition to the illegal trading of customer information, the company has been found to have been spying on its own employees.
hf/AFP/dpa
Editor: Trinity Hartman