Preventing Another Carrier IQ: Introducing the Mobile Device Privacy Act 60
MrSeb writes "Lawmakers in Washington have turned their sights on mobile device tracking, proposing legislation aimed at making it much harder for companies to track you without consent. The Mobile Device Privacy Act (PDF) makes it illegal for companies to monitor device users without their expressed consent. The bill was introduced Thursday by Massachusetts Democrat Representative Edward Markey, co-Chair of the Bi-Partisan Congressional Privacy Caucus. Much of the impetus for the bill came from last year's Carrier IQ debacle, where it emerged that the company's software was found to exist on both iOS and Android devices on AT&T and Sprint's networks. While the company denied any wrongdoing, the software captured keystrokes and sent the details of your device usage back to the carriers. If passed, the legislation would require the disclosure of including tracking software at the time of the purchase of the phone, or during ownership if a software update or app would add such software to the device, and the consumer gains the right to refuse to be tracked. This disclosure must include what types of information is collected, who it is transmitted to, and how it will be used."
Re:Carrier IQ (Score:4, Informative)
Carrier IQ exists on several levels. For Android, it went particularly deep, enough to be able to capture the key codes (whe you typed). For iOS, it couldn't go as deep, so it was used mostly for its ability to collect diagnostic data ("send diagnostic information to Apple").
I believe it came in around iOS 4 or so, but 5 I think eviscerated it as Apple implemented it themselves. If not, the sure way is to just disable sending diagnostic information to Apple.