Ireland’s communications regulator ComReg has accused national incumbent eircom of breaching rules on customer information by illegally accessing data on other service providers’ customers. The watchdog has given the telco one month to reply to the charge or remedy the process. ‘If at that stage ComReg is of the opinion that eircom is not in compliance, it may then apply to the High Court for an appropriate order, including a financial penalty,’ the regulator said in a statement. The former monopoly, which is in the process of being acquired by a consortium led by Australian investment group Babcock & Brown, said the matter was an isolated incident and that it was working fully and openly with ComReg to rectify the problem.
The regulator found that in May this year eircom retail sales agents obtained classified data on other operators’ customer accounts via eircom’s wholesale systems. A subsequent investigation confirmed the breach in protocol. ‘The information is not meant to be made available to any retail operator, including eircom retail, unless provided by customers themselves,’ it added.