Whoops.
Telco O2 in the U.K. accidentally exposed its customers' private data to websites they've perused on their smartphones. Even worse news is that it's been going on for two weeks. O2 said Thursday in its company blog that the situation has been fixed.
"We investigated, identified and fixed it this afternoon," the company wrote. "We would like to apologise for the concern we have caused."
If you're an O2 customer, don't be surprised if you get spam texts or telemarketing calls in the coming days. Cell-phone numbers have been showing up right at the top of the information that your phone sends to various websites. O2 says the mistake happened as a result of some routine maintenance it did on its network earlier this month.
"The only information websites had access to is your mobile number, which could not have been linked to any other identifying information we have about customers," the company said.
The U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office has promised to talk with O2 about laws requiring carriers to notify their customers when a data breach like this happens.
"Security is of the utmost importance to us and we take the protection of our customers’ data extremely seriously," the carrier said.
