18/11/2009

Staff of mobile network provider T-Mobile have been found to have given millions of customer records to third parties.

The telecoms company said that they alerted information commissioner Christopher Graham as soon as the breach became apparent.

Mr Graham is calling for those responsible to face prison sentences for the security breach rather than a fine.

T-Mobile has issued a statement concerning the incident, insisting that they are being proactive in the information commissioner's investigation and that no financial information was involved in the breach.

The company said: 'T-Mobile takes the protection of customer information seriously. When it became apparent that contract renewal information was being passed on to third parties without our knowledge, we alerted the Information Commissioner's Office.'

T-Mobile recently finalised a merger with rival British mobile company Orange. The merger will make the new company the largest market shareholder with 37 per cent of the UK market.