Is Your Cell Phone Being Monitored? Reports Are Saying, Probably.
Can you imagine if someone told you that everything you had ever typed into your smart phone– text messages, websites, searches, videos watched, phone numbers called, products purchased and more– had been monitored and tracked by an outside company?
Can you imagine how horrified you’d be as you thought back trying to remember everything you’d done with your phone since you got it?
Well today millions of phone users are going through exactly that. Carrier IQ is a piece of software installed on millions of mobile phones that logs everything their users do. Before you panic, it wasn’t designed as a spying program, and it’s probably not being used at one. It’s primary function is to track and assess network functioning for carriers. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you have to feel great about knowing that the information is being transmitted.
It’s existed for years without users knowing about it until Android developer Trevor Eckhart posted an explanation of the app a few months ago. Then this week, he posted a 17 minute YouTube video (see below) providing an analysis of the app and how it works, and now people are really paying attention.
According to Money.cnn.com,
AT&T (T, Fortune 500) and Sprint (S, Fortune 500) confirmed to CNNMoney that handsets on their networks run Carrier IQ’s software and transmit information from it back to them. T-Mobile, which was not immediately prepared to comment, also uses Carrier IQ to monitor devices on its network, researchers say.
Verizon Wireless (VZ, Fortune 500) says it doesn’t use Carrier IQ’s software. It also claims that it doesn’t run anything similar, though Verizon’s rivals all disputed that, insisting that modern networks can’t operate without these kinds of diagnostic tools.
Researchers have found the software on multiple devices running Google’s (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android operating system.
Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) also confirmed Thursday to CNNMoney that the software is running on some of its mobile devices, but the company says it stopped supporting it in the latest version of iOS and will completely eliminate Carrier IQ from all iPhones and iPads in an upcoming software update.
Read more at money.cnn.com.
