UK network Everything Everywhere has responded to scathing reports at the weekend claiming the company planned to sell the data of 27m customers to the Metropolitan Police.
A Sunday Times report said research firm Ipsos Mori had exclusive rights to sell EE's customer data on its behalf and had been in talks with The Met, who backed away from the deal.
According to the article, Ipsos Mori has shopping users' gender, age, postcode, websites visited, and the time and locations of texts and calls.
However, EE has since told the BBC that the report was "misleading to say the least" and that data was all aggregated and anonymous, with nothing to identify individual customers.
EE: We'd never breach trust
"We would never breach the trust our customers place in us and we always act to comply fully with the Data Protection Act," EE said in a statement.
"The information is anonymised and aggregated, and cannot be used to identify the personal information of individual customers."
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police said a deal had never been agreed with, claiming it "has made no offer to purchase data from Ipsos Mori nor has any intention of doing so."
The report had led to allegations that the purchase would be a backdoor means of achieving the same goals as the government's controversial Snoopers Charter.
Via: BBC
