GTE Goofs Again, Prints Unlisted Data on Customers
GTE Corp. inadvertently published the unlisted names, addresses and phone numbers of 320 California customers in five widely distributed white pages directories, state regulators revealed Thursday.
Despite the small number of customers affected, the latest breach is likely to strike a raw nerve among privacy-conscious Californians, especially coming on the heels of a larger snafu involving GTE’s specialty directories.
In April, GTE acknowledged that a computer error caused it to print 45,000 unlisted addresses and phone numbers in its California street address directories used by businesses and telemarketers.
The company recalled the faulty directories and offered compensation to the affected customers.
On Thursday, state regulators approved GTE’s plan to also compensate the affected white pages customers. Under the plan, GTE will change an affected customer’s phone number for free (if requested), provide one year of unlisted service free, and, in some cases, will provide free caller ID service for a year.
In addition, GTE will offer residential customers a $25 credit and an additional $50 credit to defray the expense of notifying people of a number change. Affected business customers will receive a $100 credit and an additional $100 if there is a number change.
GTE said it discovered the white pages errors while checking the accuracy of all of its directories published nationwide.
In California, where GTE is the second-largest phone company, the company discovered 320 non-published listings included among the 350,000 listings in five different white pages directories.
The California Public Utilities Commission, citing privacy concerns, declined to name the communities covered by the five affected directories.
The white pages mistakes--amounting to less than one-tenth of 1% of the total listings--were caused by human error and not related to the earlier computer glitch, according to Peter Thonis, a GTE spokesman. He said the error rate was similar in directories outside California.
“It’s a very small number, and it seems to be the percentage of errors that might occur in any telephone directory,” said Beth Givens, project director at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit group in San Diego. “I don’t think it’s outside the realm of ‘honest mistake,’ but in a larger phone company, the numbers would really add up to a lot of people.”
State regulators are still reviewing the street address directory incident to determine if the company should be fined for the breach of customers’ privacy.
