AT&T and Verizon have failed in their attempt to overturn fines for mishandling customer location data.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) slapped the carriers with more than $100 million in fines back in 2024 after reports dated back to 2018 found the pair running location-based service programs and then selling customer real-time location data to third-party service providers via third parties without proper safeguards on who could access that data.

One particularly egregious incident involved Securus, a company providing location-finding services to law enforcement. Officers were required to upload a warrant or other legal authorization to access location data, but a Missouri sheriff was found to have obtained it by uploading irrelevant documents.

In a bid to prevent the hefty financial punishments, the pair argued the whole process violated their 7^th Amendment right to a jury trial. Appeals to the 5^th Circuit saw the court side with AT&T, while Verizon’s appeal to the 2^nd Circuit was waved off, leading to the U.S. Supreme Court agreeing to pick up the case.

In an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court held that the FCC's forfeiture orders don't actually obligate payment, finding them non-binding until the Department of Justice (DoJ) sues to collect, at which point the carrier gets a full trial de novo with a jury.

Since the jury still gets the last word before anyone is truly forced to pay, the Supreme Court found there lacked a 7t^h Amendment problem. The ruling means the FCC's enforcement structure survives, but only because the de novo jury trial safety valve exists on paper.

“At day’s end, a forfeiture order issued … is simply the commission’s own determination,” U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court’s opinion. “Its only legal effect is to enable the Department of Justice to file a suit to recover for the carriers’ suspected violations.”

Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, agreeing with the majority's constitutional framework but arguing the orders looked mandatory when issued to AT&T and Verizon, and that since the carriers paid under protest in good faith, they should be given a chance at relief.

“Today, the court punishes AT&T and Verizon for complying with a government order that they in good faith believed was obligatory, diligently preserving their objection to that order, and then litigating that objection so effectively as to cause the government to change its position years later,” Justice Thomas wrote.

Commenting on the decision, Vaidotas Šedys, CRO at Oxylabs, said: “Companies that handle sensitive data have an ethical obligation to know their customers and partners. For them, it’s crucial to determine who they are dealing with and why those users want access in the first place. Missing just one bad actor can bring significant financial and reputational damage.”