For the past couple of weeks in the smartphone community, there’s been a buzz over a piece of software that’s supposedly put onto phones by carriers that tracks your movements as you use your phone. Data such as account names, phone numbers and location data and more are reported to be collected by this piece of software. Supposedly, these pieces of data are collected so the carriers (e.g. Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.) can more properly ‘fine-tune’ the experience of their phones in the future. This past week, it was announced that this piece of software had a name… which is ‘CarrierIQ’.

SO WHAT EXACTLY IS CARRIERIQ?

Well, CarrierIQ made a press release which stated that their software DOES NOT do the following -

• Does not record your keystrokes.
• Does not provide tracking tools.
• Does not inspect or report on the content of your communications, such as the content of emails and SMSs.
• Does not provide real-time data reporting to any customer.
• Finally, we do not sell Carrier IQ data to third parties.

An Android security expert named Trever Eckhart published a video in response to CIQ’s press release which seemingly contradicts just about all of the above. In the 17 minute long video, Eckhart goes through and in real-time shows how keystrokes are recorded including phones numbers dialed, secure website (HTTPS) data is sent unencrypted, text message data is accessed and of course that you really don’t know that this app is running. The analysis was performed on a stock Sprint EVO 3D and EVO 4G. The really disturbing thing is the fact that 1) you aren’t told about it 2) can’t uninstall the software.

SO WHO IS AFFECTED BY CARRIERIQ?

As of right now, it turns out that BlackBerry phones, iPhones and most Android phones are affected by CarrierIQ. You might be wondering what I mean when I say ‘most’ Android phones. What I mean are phones that aren’t Google’s ‘Nexus’-branded phones (such as the Nexus One, Nexus S and the Galaxy Nexus). Android phones branded by HTC and Samsung are allegedly currently putting CarrierIQ onto their phones at the request of phone carriers.

According to this article at Pocketnow.com, it seems that iPhone users are not safe either… according to this quote -

Apple bundles CarrierIQ into their OS — as has since version 3.0. It’s reportedly not identical to the Android/RIM version, and can supposedly be opted-out of, or disabled at any time. Go to Settings > General > About > Diagnostics & Usage and choose “Don’t send” and you’re free and clear of the software’s all-seeing eyes.

So if you’re an iPhone user, it’s a lot easier to be released from the hands of CarrierIQ than if you use Android or BlackBerry phones. The article from Pocketnow that I linked above is a good read and raises some great questions regarding carriers and CarrierIQ itself.

WHAT ABOUT WINDOWS PHONE?

UPDATE: (about 30 mins after this post was published) Jim Belfiore, the man who oversees Windows Phone design and software development posted the following on Twitter -

“Since people are asking– Windows Phones don’t have CarrierIQ on them either.”

So there you go… cut and dry answer!
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As it turns out, according to Windows Phone developer/ChevronWP7 member Rafael Rivera, he was quoted on Twitter as saying -

“I have found no evidence to suggest CIQ is present on any Windows Phone device. Let’s hope it stays that way.”

For those who don’t know who Rafael is, he is one of the most well known members of the Windows Phone development community. He’s known to rip into Microsoft sofware and break both positive and negative news about Windows Phone (and other Microsoft products).

According to another good article written by WPCentral.com -

At this time, Windows Phone seems to be exempt from such software as we have seen no reports nor evidence to make us believe this is an issue with our OS. That seems to be because Windows Phone OS is controlled by Microsoft directly and OEMs/Carriers cannot significantly alter the base code. Still, we’re contacting some people who may know more on the topic, so we’ll keep you posted.

In this day and age where people SHOULD BE vigilent of their privacy and security, it seems that most people simply are not. Certain companies are taking it upon themselves to take advantage of people and get the information they need behind our backs. Thankfully, there are those that can read between the lines and find out things that the rest of us don’t know about. What the rest of us should be doing is taking notice of these findings and learn to look around us and become more knowledgeable about these kind of things.

Hopefully this post educated you a little bit and you are now more knowledgeable about what CarrierIQ and what the big deal really is about.