Customers of mobile giant AT&T could reportedly be eligible for thousands of dollars in compensation as part of a data breach settlement.
AT&T is agreeing to a $177 million class action settlement after a lawsuit alleged that the telecommunications company’s failure to protect customers’ personal information led to massive data breaches, reports USA Today.
On March 30th, 2024, AT&T announced that customer information, including addresses, social security numbers and passcodes, was released on the dark web and stemmed from a 2019 data breach.
Then on July 12th, 2024, AT&T announced customers’ call and text records had been illegally downloaded, impacting nearly all cellular customers from May 2022 to October 2022, as well as a smaller number of customers on January 2nd, 2023.
In agreeing to the settlement, AT&T does not dispute the data breaches happened but denies any mishandling of customer data or any wrongdoing.
AT&T says in a statement that it is “committed to protecting our customers’ data and ensuring their continued trust in us.”
“While we deny the allegations in these lawsuits that we were responsible for these criminal acts, we have agreed to this settlement to avoid the expense and uncertainty of protracted litigation.”
The breaches are believed to have impacted tens of millions of people with AT&T accounts.
Customers impacted by the data breach announced in March 2024 can claim up to $5,000 and those impacted by the incident announced in July 2024 can claim up to $2,500 if they can prove they suffered losses of that amount as a result of the data leaks.
The deadline to submit a claim is November 18th.
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