TeleSign in GDPR Claims

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Data secretly collected and sent to the United States

TeleSign, a US-based fraud prevention company, allegedly collected data from millions of EU citizens and processed it in the US using automated tools without their knowledge, according to a Austrian privacy group.

The complaint, from noyb, led by attorney Max Schrems (pictured), alleges TeleSign violates GDPR provisions that prohibit the use of automated profiling tools, as well as rules that require affirmative consent to process data EU citizens.

It claims that TeleSign, through its former Belgian parent company BICS, secretly collected data on mobile phone users and fed it into an automated system that generates “reputation scores” that TeleSign whipped at its customers. clients. Enterprise clients included Tik Tok, Salesforce, Microsoft and AWS. This allowed them to verify the identity of a person behind a phone number and prevent fraud.

BICS, which acquired TeleSign in 2017, describes itself as “a global provider of international wholesale connectivity and interoperability services”, essentially operating as an exchange point for various national cellular networks.

When BICS acquired TeleSign in 2017, it began to fall under the partial control of BICS’ parent company, Belgian telecommunications giant Proximus. Proximus held a partial stake in BICS, which Proximus separated from its own activities in 1997.

In 2021, Proximus bought out the other shareholders of BICS, making it the sole owner of both the telecom exchange and TeleSign. In this spirit, noyb is also filing a complaint against Proximus and BICS.

In its complaint, noyb stated that Proximus had been asked by EU citizens from various countries to provide records of the data processed by TeleSign, as is their right under Article 15 of the GDPR.

Noyb requests the cessation of all data transfers from BICS to TeleSign, the processing of said data, and requests the deletion of all data transmitted illegally. He is also asking the Belgian data protection authorities to impose a fine on Proximus, which the noyb says could reach $257 million, or just 4% of Proximus’ global turnover.

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