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.
Just to clarify all of the media frenzy around the FBI.
Carrier IQ has never provided any data to the FBI. If approached by a law enforcement agency, we would refer them to the network operators because the diagnostic data collected belongs to them and not Carrier IQ.
Carrier IQs data is not designed to address the special needs of law enforcement. The diagnostic data that we capture is mostly historical and won’t reveal where somebody is and what they are doing on a real-time basis.
While I’m not sure about the first part — the matter of ownership — the latter part is ridiculous. Carrier IQ’s data collection would of course be of interest to police. Just because it doesn’t say what I’m doing right now doesn’t mean my texts, calls, and website visits aren’t deeply personal and entirely revealing. You don’t need to know where I am to know who I am.