Free Enforcement · 14 January 2026

Fined 42 million euros after 24 million subscriber contracts were exposed

42 million euros combined fines

France's regulator, the CNIL, fined Free Mobile 27 million euros and Free 15 million euros in decisions of 13 January 2026, published the next day. In October 2024 an attacker got into the companies' systems and reached personal data tied to 24 million subscriber contracts, including IBANs for people who were customers of both. The CNIL found weak authentication on the VPN used for remote access, anomaly detection that did not work, and breach emails that did not tell subscribers enough. It found Free Mobile kept former subscribers' data longer than justified, and ordered security fixes within three months and a purge within six.

affected · Subscriber systems (Free and Free Mobile)

sources CNIL

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Incident · Generative AI & AI Assistants