Company confirms data loss

Personal information for some 17 million of Deutsche Telekom's mobile phone customers has been stolen, the company has confirmed.

Deutsche Telekom spokeswoman Marion Kessing said the data was stolen in 2006 from customers with accounts through its T-Mobile phone provider.

Kessing said the company immediately reported the theft to state prosecutors in Bonn, who investigated the danger posed to customers by the information breach. Last week they brought the theft to the attention of the Interior Ministry in Berlin, Kessing said, after learning that Germany's Der Spiegel magazine was planning to publicise the theft.

It has never been clear why the company and government officials waited so long to tell the general public that the theft had occurred.

Kessing said the stolen information included customers' mobile phone number, address, date of birth and in some cases an email address. According to Kessing, bank account or credit card numbers were not included in the compromised data.

Der Spiegel, which first reported the leak, said that the home addresses and private mobile numbers of many German politicians and celebrities were among those stolen.

Whether the compromised data has had an affect on or been used against any of the 17 million customers is unclear.

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