Ranking Members Waxman, DeGette, and Butterfield Request Hearing on Carrier IQ Controversy and Consumer Privacy
January 12, 2012
Washington, DC— Today Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Ranking Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Diana DeGette, Ranking Member of the Oversight and InvestigationsSubcommittee, and Rep. G. K. Butterfield Ranking Member of the Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee called for a Committee hearing on the concerns about consumer privacy raised by the recent Carrier IQ software controversy. In December 2011, a researcher reported that that Carrier IQ diagnostic cell phone software records all keystrokes entered into a mobile device using Google's Android operating system, including the content of text messages and other sensitive data.
In their letter to Chairman Fred Upton and Subcommittee Chairmen Stearns and Bono Mack, the Democratic members wrote that "[d]ata collection and transmission by Carrier IQ and similar software is widespread, and consumers appear to have little knowledge and even less control over the practice," and that "there continue to be many unanswered questions about the handling of this data and the extent to which its collection, analysis, and transmission pose legitimate privacy concerns for the American public."
The full text of the letter is available online here.