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Is your cellphone spying on you?
A researcher just discovered a hidden application that records what millions of people write, view and search for on their cellphones. It sends all of that data to a company no one’s ever heard of. And we have no idea what that company is doing with our information.1
Sounds like 1984. But it’s happening in 2011.
This week, Sen. Al Franken and Rep. Ed Markey demanded answers from the company, Carrier IQ, and Franken called its technology "deeply troubling." We now need a full investigation.2
Tell Congress and the Department of Justice: My cellphone is mine, and I have the right to be free from being spied on.
Carrier IQ has worked with cellphone manufacturers and carriers to install its spying software on 141 million phones,3 including Androids and iPhones and possibly models made by BlackBerry, Nokia and other manufacturers.4
Trevor Eckhart exposed the privacy breach in a shocking video that shows how Carrier IQ secretly 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 Carrier IQ headquarters.
There’s no way to turn any of this off without hacking your phone. And carriers neglected to inform the public that this software exists in the first place.
The fact that one company is secretly storing away the data of millions of cellphone users — without our knowledge, and with no way for us to opt out — is just incredible. You’d expect this sort of thing from the Chinese government — not from a company operating in the present-day U.S.
Take action now to stand up for your mobile freedoms.
This is not only a privacy problem. It’s a democracy problem.
Cellphones have become the ultimate democracy devices. Activists from Cairo to New York City to Los Angeles have used their phones to broadcast images of pepper-spraying cops, handcuffed journalists and squares full of protesters. We must ensure that the most important movements of our time aren’t compromised by data spies with little regard for our free speech or privacy.
Tell Congress and the Department of Justice: Protect cellphone users from data spies. Investigate Carrier IQ.
Law professor and former Department of Justice attorney Paul Ohm says that Carrier IQ’s snoopware “is very likely a federal wiretap,” which means that the company could be prosecuted for breaking federal law.5
“Consumers need to know that their safety and privacy are being protected by the companies they trust with their sensitive information,” Sen. Franken said. “ … Carrier IQ has a lot of questions to answer.”
We agree. Let’s get some answers.
Thanks,
Josh Levy
Internet Campaign Director
Free Press Action Fund
SavetheInternet.com
There is an application on the Android Market to detect Carrier IQ on Android-based phones. It is very new and being updated. It is a good starting tool to find this program, however.
You guys do know that the FBI had a system called Carnivore. It monitors and records all e-mail and text messages of folks deemed suspisious. A few years back it was replaced by a better more advanced program. This cell phone monitoring is nothing new as our beloved Uncle Sam has been monitoring us for years (all in the interest of National Security). You can read more about it at Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software)
In the meantime, spyware on certain sites for demographics farming and software that reports IP addresses for downloading are perfectly okay, it appears.
I read somewhere that it is the phone companies, not the manufacturers that put the app on there. So they said if you don’t want it, say on an Iphone, you would have to buy one at the Apple store, for full price, then take it to a phone place to get it activated.