A reporter from Muckrock News decided to use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to their advantage and asked the FBI to release information on the company that created and distributed Carrier IQ. The request was to find out more about who all gets the personal information retrieved from millions of smart phones a crossed the United States. The request was denied.
The request came from Michael Morisy of Muckrock News and directly asked for manuals, Documents and or other written guidance used to access of analyze data gathered by programs developed or deployed by Carrier IQ. Washington Post reports the FBI Section Chief David Hardy replied this this response:
I have determined that the records responsive to your request are law enforcement records; that there is a pending prospective law enforcement proceeding relevant to these records; and that release of the information contained in these responsive records could reasonably be expected to interfere with the enforcement proceedings.
It is unclear from this response if the FBI is using the information collected by Carrier IQ or investigating the company itself but people are already jumping to their own conclusions. The company that distributes Carrier IQ still stands by its earlier statements that they are unsure why the program records keystrokes and that there is no mechanism for collecting that information from everyone’s smart devices. The have released an outline of what the program does and doesn’t do as seen here.
Carrier IQ was thrust into the lime light when a security programmer named Trevor Eckhart uploaded a youtube.com video showing the program working (see the 17 minute video here). The video that has now had over 1.8 million views has gone viral and has caused uproar in smartphone users. The video shows how every single move that is made on your smart device including the buttons you push are recorded.
Carrier IQ is now on every conspiracy theorist’s radar a crossed America and the FBI didn’t do them any favors by denying the request. The new question is the FBI pulling all of this data from our phones to use as law enforcement or is this just the beginning of the “big brother” life in a post 9-11 world. Either way, this is just the beginning for Carrier IQ’s and the public that now knows it secretes.
To read more about Carrier IQ click here.