As with every other major carrier, T-Mobile doesn’t exactly have a sterling track record when it comes to keeping user data private. You might remember the T-Mobile hack that impacted tens of millions of customers in 2021 or a data breach that affected tens of millions more in 2023. As expected, incidents like those put many subscribers on high alert, which is why everyone with a T-Mobile plan should be aware of two new privacy settings that give the carrier access to even more of your data. Most importantly, they’re both on by default.
As spotted by The Mobile Report, T-Mobile recently added two new toggles to its online Privacy Center. As noted above, the toggles are both on by default, but thankfully, the carrier is giving its customers the option to opt out of either if they so choose.
The first toggle has an innocuous title: “Fraud and identity theft protection.” T-Mobile says that it uses your data (including account information and activity, device information, texting and calling patterns, and interactions with potentially malicious URLs) to help spot and protect you from any fraud or identity theft. The carrier also explains that it shares that data “with other companies” to help them protect your from fraud and abuse as well.
On paper, it sounds like a decent trade-off. You give T-Mobile your data, the carrier coordinates with other companies to keep you safe from scams. That said, the lack of details regarding the companies T-Mobile plans to share the data with is concerning.
The other toggle sounds a bit more worrisome: “Sharing certain financial information.” Right out of the gate, this doesn’t look good. By default, T-Mobile will share this private data with financial companies, affiliates, and non-affiliates. I’m pretty confident I don’t want any of those groups to have unfettered access to my financial data.
The good news is that you can turn them both off with a single click by visiting T-Mobile’s Privacy Center in your browser and logging in to your account. Find the toggles we discussed above and click them to turn them off (if there’s a checkmark, they’re toggled on).
You can also turn the toggles off in the T-Life app by following these steps:
- Open the T-Life app on your phone or tablet.
- Go to the Manage tab and tap the gear icon in the top-right corner.
- Scroll down and tap Privacy & policies in the menu.
- Tap Privacy dashboard and find the relevant toggles.
It’s also worth noting that you’ll have to repeat this process for every line if you have more than one. It’s not an account-wide change, so you might need to do this more than once. That said, it’s a small price to pay to keep your personal data private.
