A US senator has said that Carrier IQ has failed to adequately answer queries regarding the data that the company itself admitted allows its software to track from mobile phone users.
Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, said he was "still very troubled by what’s going on" after poring through information submitted by the company and by mobile carriers including AT&T and Sprint Nextel, according to Bloomberg.
Carrier IQ’s controversial software raised the ire of many a mobile user, after Trevor Eckhart, a software engineer, demonstrated on a YouTube clip as to how the company could be compromising one’s personal data and selling it to interested parties.
Franken said in a note to Carrier IQ that people had a fundamental right to control their private information.
"The average user of any device equipped with Carrier IQ software has no way of knowing that this software is running, what information it is getting, and who it is giving it to — and that’s a problem," Franken said.
Carrier IQ’s vice president of marketing Andrew Coward said he appreciated subcommittee chairman Franken’s continued interest in protecting consumer privacy and looked forward to their ongoing dialogue with the Senator to answer his additional questions.
AT&T and Sprint said they use data gathered by Carrier IQ software to monitor network performance, including dropped calls and Internet service outages.
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