As we reported
earlier today, Trevor Eckhart of Connecticut revealed that many
Android, BlackBerry and Nokia phones come bundled with software called
"IQRD" developed by a company called Carrier IQ that secretly logs
everything a user does on the mobile phone.
The creepy thing is that Eckhart found
Carrier IQ's software logging even personal information such as text
messages and web searches, which has raised serious privacy concerns.
Unfortunately, there is no way to turn off the logging in the case of
Android based smartphones.
Developer and hacker chpwn had also seen
references of Carrier IQ's software in iOS, but based on his initial
analysis he felt that iOS was logging information related to device's
performance and does not seem to have access to capture information such
as text messages and Web searches like seen on Android based
smartphones.
AllThingsD has just reported that Apple has issued a statement regarding the controversy:
We stopped
supporting CarrierIQ with iOS 5 in most of our products and will remove
it completely in a future software update. With any diagnostic data sent
to Apple, customers must actively opt-in to share this information, and
if they do, the data is sent in an anonymous and encrypted form and
does not include any personal information. We never recorded keystrokes,
messages or any other personal information for diagnostic data and have
no plans to ever do so.
As we had mentioned earlier, while we
are fine with carriers collecting information related device's
performance, Carrier IQ seems to have crossed the line by even recording
key strokes on the mobile phone. So it's good to know that Apple isn't
using Carrier's IQ's stealth logging software and isn't buckling down to
pressure from carriers who insist that software should be pre-installed
on mobile phones.
What do you think? Please share your views in the comments section below.
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