Last week, some ominous news regarding the FBI’s involvement with Carrier IQ surfaced. Carrier IQ, having had its fair heap of godawful press, was quick to shoot me an email clarification. What followed doesn’t help its case.
Carrier IQ execs were in DC yesterday meeting with FTC and FCC officialsabout its alleged spying antics. Both agencies are probing the carrier over allegations that its tracking software was installed on more than 150 million smartphones without user knowledge.
Yesterday, we told you about a ominous denial from the FBI regarding its involvement with Carrier IQ. Today, Carrier IQ spoke to us on the matter.
While the FBI has so far blocked FOIA attempts regarding its involvement in the Carrier IQ scandal, the embattled firm has released an expansive report detailing its data collection process and responds directly the allegations against it.
Well, I suppose this was inevitable: the FBI, via a Freedom of Information Act request denial, inadvertently admitted to using Carrier IQ data. That’s data about you, sucked off of your phone, without your knowledge.
As head of the US Senate’s privacy panel, Senator Al Franken has spearheaded the investigation into Carrier IQ’s potential violations of multiple federal statutes. Now he’s requested AT&T, Sprint, HTC and Samsung explain themselves as to what data exactly they’ve gathered using the program. They have until December 14 to respond. [Electronista]
According to security consultant Dan Rosenberg, the Carrier IQ spyware in his Samsung Epic 4G is not recording his text keystrokes. Rosenberg also claims that Carrier IQ cannot record SMS text bodies, emails or web page contents:
Yesterday we explained how to check for Carrier IQ if you have a rooted Android handset. But people have been busy: now you can download an app from the Android Market to check if you’re clean.
It hasn’t been a good week for Carrier IQ. First a damning video apparently illustrating the extent of what information the program collects surfaces, then everything goes to shit. Now, the company is facing a Senate investigation for potentially millions of violations of privacy laws. And this is the response?
