Notices for breaches of PECR (The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations) against Carphone Warehouse and TalkTalk for making marketing calls to people who were signed up to the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) or people who had asked that the company make no further calls to them. On 28 October 2006, in an interview in The Times, Richard Thomas, Britain's Information Commissioner, stated: We're taking action against some of the telecom companies, Talk Talk and Carphone Warehouse. We're taking action against them because we've had a lot of complaints that they've been telephoning people with marketing calls, people whose name is on the telephone preference service. And then we do these prosecutions, particularly with private detectives. We've got a big case coming up. On 5 August 2015, hackers gained access to customer data for 2.4 million people who had used sites operated by Carphone Warehouse, including OneStopPhoneShop.com, e2save.com, Mobiles.co.uk and TalkTalk Group. In January 2018, the company was fined £400,000 by the ICO for "multiple inadequacies" in Carphone's security processes, including using old software and failing to carry out routine security testing. Intruders were able to access personal information, including the names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, marital status and, in more than 18,000 cases, historical payment card details of customers of Carphone Warehouse. Marketing and sponsorship The X Factor On 19 June 2007, Carphone Warehouse became the official sponsor of the fourth series of The X Factor. The sponsorship deal was to last for three years. Carphone Warehouse also became the sponsor of its spin off show, The Xtra Factor. After Carphone Warehouse and TalkTalk split, TalkTalk took over the sole sponsorship of The X Factor. Big Brother The company were the sponsors for the United Kingdom's version of Big Brother from 2004 to 2007. In 2006, they also sponsored Celebrity Big Brother and related Celebrity Big Brother shows on Channel 4. On 17 January 2007, in response to alleged racism in Celebrity Big Brother, Charles Dunstone said: "We are talking to Channel 4. The sponsorship is constantly under review. Clearly we are against racism. Most people understand that the person who has their name associated with the programme does not necessarily condone the content." On 18 January 2007, Carphone Warehouse announced that it had suspended its sponsorship of the show as Channel 4 had not taken sufficient action in response to the alleged racism in the show. On