Carrier IQ has gained the attention of the U.S. Senate and they are demanding answers. Senator Al Franken has made a request to the carriers and handset manufacturers to clarify which phones are using the software and exactly what they are using the data for.
AT&T, Sprint, HTC, and Samsung have sent complete lists of exactly which handsets are actively using the software to the Senate. In addition to that, AT&T and Sprint have verified that Carrier IQ does in fact capture the content of text messages, "under certain conditions."
According to AT&T (pdf) the context of text messages is captured when a message comes in while the user is on a phone call, "the CIQ software also captured the content of SMS text messages—when and only when—such messages were sent or received while a voice call was in progress."
The full list of handsets that use the software has been compiled into a mega list over at Gizmodo. Some of the most interesting notes include how many users the carriers and handset manufacturers claim are affected by this software. AT&T says 900,000 users have the software running. Sprint says 26 million active devices have the software. Verizon has previously stated they do not use the software on any of their handsets.
Samsung's response to the Senate claims 25 million phones contain the software and HTC says they have 6.3 million phones with the software preinstalled. Motorola also claims they do not install the software on any of their handsets.
That is a whole lot of phones that have the Carrier IQ software installed. It isn't completely clear at this point exactly what all of this data is being used for by the carriers. Most will claim the data is simply being used for network analysis and usage information purposes, but if that was the case, why exactly does the content of my text messages need to be recorded?
I've got the benefit of being both a Verizon customer and a Motorola handset owner, so I'm not affected by this data collection business. Do any of you folks have phones on this list? Are you worried about what these companies are using all of this collected data for?
