Skip to main content

App installed on millions of phones secretly records all activity

carrier-iq
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Mobile users, beware: you’re being watched — constantly. An Android developer claims to have discovered an app that comes pre-installed on millions of Android and BlackBerry handsets, that records all activity on the device. That includes calls, location, and every key pressed on the device.

Update: Nokia says that reports that this software is installed on its devices is incorrect, and that the software won’t work with their systems.

The app, created by California-based software company Carrier IQ, is shown in a video posted to YouTube (see below) by developer Trevor Eckhard logging every key he pressed, in real time. The software even recorded Eckhard’s geographic location, when connected to Google via Wi-Fi — not 3G — even though he denied permission for Google to track his whereabouts. Calls aren’t safe, either.

“Every button you press in the dialer before you call,” Eckhard says on the video, “it already gets sent off to the IQ application.”

According to Carrier IQ, the software is simply used to assess quality control, telling Wired that the app is for “gathering information off the handset to understand the mobile-user experience, where phone calls are dropped, where signal quality is poor, why applications crash and battery life.”

The company also denied that the software transmits user data in real time.

“Our technology is not real time,” said Andrew Coward, Carrier IQ’s VP of marketing, in an interview last week. “It’s not constantly reporting back. It’s gathering information up and is usually transmitted in small doses.”

So when Eckhard dubbed the software a “rootkit” — a term typically associated with trojans and other malware — Carrier IQ threatened to wage a legal battle against Eckhard. The company quickly pulled off its dogs, however, after the Electronic Frontier Foundation came out in support of Eckhard’s claims. Carrier IQ also denies that its software records keystrokes — a claim obviously refuted by Eckhard’s video.

The only way to rid your device of Carrier IQ’s invasive monitoring software is to completely wipe your device, and reinstall it with a new operating system.

This is, of course, not the first time we’ve learned about our mobile devices betraying our private data. But it doesn’t make it any less troublesome, this time around.

Editors' Recommendations

Andrew Couts
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…
How to master your equalizer settings for the perfect sound
An equalizer from eqMac.

While most people will simply flip on the radio or load up Spotify to listen to music, audiophiles like to dig a bit deeper and customize their experience. This often comes in the form of adjustments to the equalizer, which offers the freedom to tweak every aspect of the sound booming out of headphones or speakers. Even some streaming services now have built-in EQs, giving you more ways than ever to play with your music and find something that best fits your ears.

Tinkering with the equalizer can be daunting to newcomers, as there are tons of cryptic settings you can manipulate. And if you mess with the wrong one, your sound quality might take a nasty hit. Thankfully, learning the basics isn't too difficult.

Read more
How to change your iPhone’s notification sound in iOS 17
how to change iphone default notification sound ios 17 sounds screenshot

Apple made a change to the default notification sound when it launched iOS 17, replacing “Tri-tone” with “Rebound.”Users have been unable to switch back to the original sound or select a different one as the default, and not everyone is a fan of the new tune. As you'd imagine, that's left some folks rather annoyed.

Read more
5 things I want to see in the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and S Pen stylus on its screen.

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is definitely one of the best smartphones on the market right now, no doubt about that. You get incredible performance with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, plenty of RAM and storage, a whopping 200MP camera, two telephoto lenses for 3x and 5x optical zoom, S Pen integration, and more. It’s certainly an impressive package.

But it’s not perfect. In fact, some weaknesses could be improved in the next version, the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Here’s what I hope to see next year.
A new design
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (left) and Galaxy S23 Ultra Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Read more