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Major cell phone companies could be held liable for store employees who steal customers' nude photos while transferring their data to a new phone, thanks to a court judgment in Washington state.
Over the past few years, at least 18 people have sued telecom firms including Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T over thefts of private information by their workers, according to CNBC.
Until now, judges have usually accepted the companies' argument that they are not responsible because they were not aware of and did not condone the employees' actions.
But in April, US district judge Stanley Bastian ruled that a complaint filed against T-Mobile by a woman in Richland, WA could proceed after all.
Lawyers told CNBC that the "landmark" decision could provide support to similar lawsuits in other states, such as a woman who is suing AT&T after a Los Angeles store employee distributed her nude photos online.
"That decision sets important precedent," said Laura Hecht-Felalla of the law firm CA Goldberg, which is conducting both the T-Mobile and the AT&T case.
"We intend to continue to try to hold phone companies accountable for situations like this, where their employees violate customer privacy during phone trade-ins or other transactions at the stores.
"There’s a lot of different ways in which they can try to prevent this from happening, and it’s clear whatever they’re currently doing is not adequate."
A spokesperson for AT&T said: "We were appalled to learn of the behavior allegedly exhibited by an employee of a third-party retailer. We hold the vendors who work on our behalf to high standards and we do not tolerate the behavior alleged here.
"The vendor has assured us the employee allegedly involved no longer works for them, and they were working to resolve this matter with the customer."
The Independent has contacted T-Mobile for comment.
At least six complaints have reportedly been filed against AT&T over similar incidents, plus at least a dozen other cases against other phone providers.
The T-Mobile lawsuit alleges that the company and its third-party vendors have failed to establish adequate safeguards against data theft, failed to properly train its workers to respect customers' privacy, and failed to undertake proper background checks of prospective workers.
"T-Mobile has long known and turned a blind eye to its retail store employees routinely abusing their authority to illicitly obtain sensitive customer data under the guise of assisting customers with repairs and data transfers," the complaint says.
"For almost a decade, T-Mobile customers across the United States have regularly reported, as evidenced by news stories and lawsuits, instances of retail store employees stealing their intimate videos, explicit photos, and bank accounts.
"Nevertheless, T-Mobile has failed to implement any common-sense security hardware or software to protect consumers from their data and privacy being exploited during ordinary transactions at the T-Mobile store."
The decision in Washington does not guarantee judges elsewhere will follow the same approach, as they are not bound to obey precedent from courts in other states.
However, lawyers said that it will give plaintiffs extra ammunition when seeking to move into the discovery phase of a lawsuit, where they can force the phone companies to turn over potentially embarrassing internal documents.
