T-Mobile admits losing data for 17 million customers: statement (AFP)
15 minutes ago
BERLIN (AFP) - Europe's leading telecommunications company, Deutsche Telekom, admitted Saturday that it has lost confidential data belonging to 17 million T-mobile clients.
The theft, in 2006, which is now subject to a judicial inquiry, involved telephone numbers, dates of birth, addresses and email addresses, subsidiary T-Mobile said in a statement.
Spokesman Frank Domagala said that bank details were not attached, and that "according to our information, even though these details have been put up for sale on the black market, there has not been a buyer."
Domagala added that data security procedures have been reinforced since 2006.
According to news weekly Der Spiegel, copies of the information continue to circulate.
In T-Mobile's statement, managing director Philipp Humm said the company was aware that the data was being "once more used to the detriment of our clients."
German detectives have been working for weeks in tandem with the company, seeking to protect people whose lives could be endangered through the lost information.