Both Telenor and Tele2 reported the incidents to the Post and Telecom Agency (PTS) after they were discovered in September earlier this year. PTS is now conducting an audit and examining how the operators live up to the data protection requirements that exist, according to a press release.

- It is very clear in the law that the operators have a responsibility to protect the data. We look very seriously at these types of incidents, ”says Johanna Eklund, responsible for review at PTS.

Welcome the supervision

Telenor discovered the intrusion when the company checked logs in the system and some user accounts turned out to have an abnormally high number of searches. It turned out that over 30,000 subscriber data had leaked, TT writes.

The company initiated an investigation where it was found that the information that was released to unauthorized parties has been used to refer customers to the competing operator Tre, according to Telenor Sweden's Press Manager Mikko Viitala to SVT News. It should have happened at the beginning of this year.

- We welcome the supervision that is now being done and take a serious look at what has happened. We reported it to PTS very early on and have previously reported the incident to the police as we believe we have been exposed to a crime, says Viitala.

Ready next year

Tele2 was also hit by data breaches where customer data ended up with rogue phone sellers. According to Tele2's communications manager Joel Ibson, there are two user accounts in Tele2's sales support system, which have been used by a dealer for abnormally many lookups in the system from the turn of the year.

- When we discovered this, lookups had been made for 2,800 customers. A small proportion of these had then been contacted by telephone sellers of other mobile subscriptions. As soon as we discovered this, we shut down the dealer and the accounts, says Joel Ibson.

The Post and Telecom Agency's review is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year.