Ex-Verizon Employee Pleads Guilty to Selling Customer’s Call and Location Records

Daniel Eugene Traeger, a former Verizon worker based in Birmingham, Alabama, has pleaded guilty to the felony charge of unauthorized access to a protected computer, shortly after the charges were filed last week. In plain terms, Traeger admitted that he had illegally obtained the call records and location data of Verizon customers and sold it to an unnamed private investigator over a period of five years, between 2009 and 2014.

Traeger used the Verizon computer system to access client call records and exploited another Verizon system called Real Time Tool to ping devices connected to Verizon network and track their location. He entered the illicit data into a spreadsheet and sent it to the private investigator in exchange for compensation, sometimes as little as $50 per month.

“Between April 2009 and January 2014, the defendant was paid more than $10,000 in exchange for his provision of confidential customer information and cellular location data to the PI, an unauthorized third party,” court records state.

Many questions remain regarding the details of this incident, which has drawn attention to the increasing incidence of data theft in the United States and the need for the implementation more robust security measures by corporations in possession of private customer data. The court records do not disclose the extent of the security breach, how many customer records were stolen, how they may have been used, and where the affected customers were from.

Given the charge, Traeger faces a maximum sentence of up to five years in prison, though prosecutors have recommended a more lenient penalty under the terms of the plea bargain.

Verizon has yet to comment on the breach or shed light on the magnitude of the issue, according to the Associated Press.