Phone firms escape criminal ruling

Meteor and eMobile have been spared criminal convictions for breaking data protection laws following the theft of two laptops which contained sensitive personal information about thousands of customers.

The phone companies had been prosecuted following an investigation by the office of the Data Protection Commissioner after the loss of laptops, which contained information on more than 10,000 customers.

The computers were stolen on a date between Dec 28, 2011, and Jan 2, 2012, from Eircom’s premi-ses at Parkwest in Dublin.