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Sen. Franken Statement on Responses from Carrier IQ, Wireless Carriers, and Handset Manufacturers

Posted by bob on · 5 comments
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Senator Franken issued this press release making public the responses from carriers (AT&T, and Sprint) and manufacturers (Samsung and HTC) regarding the Carrier IQ privacy issue. No response yet from T-Mobile and Motorola.

Today, U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) released the following statement after reviewing the responses he received from Carrier IQ, AT&T, Sprint, Samsung, and HTC regarding Carrier IQ and the use of its software.

"I appreciate the responses I received, but I'm still very troubled by what's going on," said Sen. Franken. "People have a fundamental right to control their private information. After reading the companies' responses, I'm still concerned that this right is not being respected. The average user of any device equipped with Carrier IQ software has no way of knowing that this software is running, what information it is getting, and who it is giving it to-and that's a problem. It appears that Carrier IQ has been receiving the contents of a number of text messages-even though they had told the public that they did not. I'm also bothered by the software's ability to capture the contents of our online searches-even when users wish to encrypt them. So there are still many questions to be answered here and things that need to be fixed."

On December 1, Sen. Franken wrote a letter to Carrier IQ asking the company to explain what its software records, where it is transmitted, and who has access to it. Sen. Franken then wrote letters to AT&T, Sprint, Samsung, HTC, T-mobile, and Motorola, who had acknowledged that they used Carrier IQ's software. Sen. Franken requested that they explain what they do with the information they receive from the software.

Earlier this year, Sen. Franken introduced the Location Privacy Protection Act, which would require companies like Connect IQ to obtain the explicit permission of customers before tracking their location information or sharing that information with third parties. The legislation has already garnered significant support in the Senate and from prominent privacy and consumer protection advocates.

You can read the responses from:



    • Sen. Franken requested that T-Mobile and Motorola respond to him by Tuesday, December 20.

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    Comments (5)

    penguinist ·
    Sprint admits in their response to Senator Franken that they are tasked to "collect and report data" from "1.3 million devices", and that they began "including Carrier IQ software on devices in 2006", with 26 million Sprint devices currently active with the software.

    AT&T reports installations on "approximately 900,000 devices, with 575,000 of those collecting and reporting ... information".

    Keep up the good work Senator Franken. We need this blatant violation of our digital privacy rights to come to quick end and not be repeated.
    JaseP ·
    He's a co-sponsor of Protect IP,... He's no open internet hero... And, by the way,... SOPA/Protect IP are equal opportunity face-palms... There is blood money on congressional representation on both major parties, and in both legislative bodies. RIAA/MPAA have thrown down MAJOR cash on both sides of the ticket, way outgunning the meager efforts of big tech to defeat the bills... I hear REM's "It's the end of the world, as we know it..." playing in my head (and I might as well quote them now while it's still legal). Anyone know of a country where the internet is still free, so is living your life free of interference, and there are jobs available????
    Grishnakh ·
    @JaseP: Sweden isn't completely free, but it's a lot better than the USA as far as internet freedom. Many eastern European countries are probably pretty free too; I hear that many of them have very high-speed connections available for dirt-cheap monthly prices, putting internet access here in the USA to shame. There's a lot of software jobs in many eastern European countries like Latvia. However, the pay probably isn't that great, but the local cost-of-living is probably pretty low.
    theBeez ·
    It's always fun to see how a bug has "unintended" functionality, which allows a software developer to read or even manipulate the devices where it's installed on. Darn, I always have to work very hard to achieve that!
    penguinist ·
    Update: it looks like Sprint promised today to remove the Carrier IQ keystroke monitor from all their handsets. The manufacturers have orders to prepare handset updates to remove it.

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