Press Release
Free Press Calls on Congress, Justice Department to Investigate Cellphone Spying App
Contact: Timothy Karr, 201-533-8838
WASHINGTON -- According to several press reports, mobile software company Carrier IQ is working with phone manufacturers and cellphone carriers to install spying software on Androids and iPhones. As independent researcher Trevor Eckhart has demonstrated, Carrier IQ’s software records actions that you take on your phone — numbers that you dial, letters that you press when texting or searching the Web, menu buttons that you push — and sends it all back to the company’s headquarters. The software may also be present on models made by BlackBerry, Nokia and other manufacturers.
On Thursday, Sen. Al Franken asked Carrier IQ, as well as AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Samsung and HTC to answer a range of questions about data collection and sharing practices.
Free Press Internet Campaign Director Josh Levy made the following statement:
"Mobile phones are becoming central to life in a democracy. It's outrageous that an American company is monitoring the use of our phones with spying technologies that you'd expect to see in China, not the U.S.
"Activists from Cairo to New York to Los Angeles are using their phones to broadcast images of cops wielding pepper spray, handcuffed journalists and squares full of protesters. Actions that breach the integrity of our mobile devices violate our freedom to communicate. We must ensure that the most important movements of our time aren’t compromised by gatekeepers with little regard for our free speech or privacy.
"Congress and the Department of Justice must investigate these shady practices. We have a right to know what Carrier IQ is doing with our information, and we have a right to use our mobile phones without fear of data spies."
On Thursday, Sen. Al Franken asked Carrier IQ, as well as AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Samsung and HTC to answer a range of questions about data collection and sharing practices.
Free Press Internet Campaign Director Josh Levy made the following statement:
"Mobile phones are becoming central to life in a democracy. It's outrageous that an American company is monitoring the use of our phones with spying technologies that you'd expect to see in China, not the U.S.
"Activists from Cairo to New York to Los Angeles are using their phones to broadcast images of cops wielding pepper spray, handcuffed journalists and squares full of protesters. Actions that breach the integrity of our mobile devices violate our freedom to communicate. We must ensure that the most important movements of our time aren’t compromised by gatekeepers with little regard for our free speech or privacy.
"Congress and the Department of Justice must investigate these shady practices. We have a right to know what Carrier IQ is doing with our information, and we have a right to use our mobile phones without fear of data spies."
