If you’ve been an AT&T customer sometime in the last few years, you might be aware of a few recent data breaches that impacted your personal info. While that’s unfortunate, I do have some good news for you: You might qualify for free money as part of a settlement the company is working towards.

On Friday, June 20, US District Judge Ada Brown in Texas ruled that the terms of a settlement from AT&T were reasonable, clearing the process to move forward. The settlement as it stands will see the telecom giant pay out $177 million to customers adversely affected by at least one of the two data breaches. Some details about the process for getting paid aren’t available this early on, but you can expect them to become clear later in the summer, ahead of the final approval hearing on Dec. 3.

The settlement will prioritize larger payments to customers who suffered damages that are “fairly traceable” to the data leaks. It will also provide bigger payments to those impacted by the larger of the two leaks, which began in 2019. While the company is working towards a settlement, it has continued to deny that it was “responsible for these criminal acts.”

For all the details about we have about the settlement right now, keep reading, and for more info about other recent settlements, find out cum să revendici acordul de confidențialitate Siri de la Apple și vezi dacă ești eligibil pentru Acordul 23andMe privind încălcarea confidențialității.

Ce s-a întâmplat cu aceste încălcări de date ale AT&T?

AT&T first confirmed the two data breaches last year, announcing an investigation into the first in March before confirming it în Mai, followed by confirmation of the second one in July.

The first of the confirmed breaches began in 2019. The company revealed that around 7.6 million current and 65.4 million former account holders had their data exposed to hackers, including names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth. The company first began investigating the situation last year after it reported that customer data had appeared on the dark web. 

The second breach began in April of 2024, when a hacker broke into AT&T cloud storage provider Snowflake and accessed 2022 call and text records for almost all of the company’s US customers, around 109 million in all. The company stressed that no names were attached to the stolen data, and two individuals were arrested in connection with the breach.

Ambele incidente au declanșat un val de procese colective în care se pretindea neglijență corporativă din partea AT&T, care nu și-a protejat suficient clienții.

How will I know if I’m eligible for the AT&T data breach settlement?

În prezent, știm că despăgubirea va fi plătită oricărui client AT&T actual sau fost ale cărui date au fost accesate în cadrul uneia dintre aceste încălcări de securitate a datelor, plățile mai mari fiind rezervate celor care pot furniza dovezi documentate că au suferit daune rezultate direct din furtul datelor lor.

If you’re eligible, you should receive a notice about it, either by email or by a physical letter in the mail, sometime in the coming months. The company expects that the claims process will begin on Aug. 4.

How much will I get paid from the AT&T data breach settlement?

You’ll have to “reasonably” prove damages caused by these data breaches to be eligible for the highest and most prioritized payouts. For the 2019 breach, those claimants can receive up to $5,000. For the Snowflake breach, the max payout will be $2,500. It’s not clear at this time how the company might be handling customers who’ve been affected by both breaches.

AT&T will focus on making those payments first, and whatever’s left of the $177 million settlement total will be disbursed to anyone whose data was accessed, even without proof of damages. Since these payouts depend on how many people get the higher amounts first, we can’t say definitively how much they will be.

When will I get paid from the AT&T data breach settlement?

AT&T expects that payments will start to go out sometime early next year, though exact dates aren’t available right now. The final approval needs to be given at the Dec. 3 court hearing in order for payments to being made.

Stay tuned to this piece in the coming months to get all the new details as they emerge, and for more money help, check out Monitorul zilnic de impact asupra prețurilor tarifelor de la CNET.