Privacy Net – December 5, 2011

So, you probably don’t even need to be following the digital privacy debate in order to have heard about this story, but last week it was revealed that a number of mobile carriers have been using an application called Carrier IQ. The program is apparently hidden from users, but logs every keystroke on your phone as well as every incoming text message, without your permission, and then sends at least some of that data to your mobile provider, in order to help your provider to optimize its network. We have a few stories this morning regarding this beast, but the best place to start is probably this kind of overview post from Mashable… [Mashable]

But while at first blush (and much of the coverage hasn’t done a lot to help this) it may seem extremely unnecessarily intrusive, maybe in reality it’s not as “evil” as you think (just a gentle reminder – what I mostly do here is summarize the perspective of others’ articles, and these views aren’t necessarily my own). If you think about the operating system of your PC or laptop, it also knows every keystroke and all of the content you’re viewing, even if it doesn’t necessarily share all of that with a 3rd party you haven’t authorized it to share with (this type of action is also common in diagnostic/debugging programs, although most of the time you authorize or initiate those applications voluntarily)… [Mashable]

Elsewhere in Carrier IQ blowback, apparently Germany’s data regulator, the “Bavarian State Authority for Data Protection” has asked Apple to address the privacy concerns/implications raised by all of the press on the application so far… [Bloomberg]

Either way, Apple has already committed to removing Carrier IQ from all future iPhones’ software. The company said it had already started doing so starting with its OS5, but that it would also stop supporting it for current iPhones running anything less than OS5. But if you’re an iPhone owner and don’t trust/don’t want to wait for that to happen, and want to know how to block the software now, this post also has you covered… [Mashable]

And of course, just as with basically every new privacy outrage, Congress has asked Carrier IQ to address “a number” of concerns over certain data collected by the program that may not necessarily be relevant to helping mobile carriers improve their networks’ performances, and to do so by next Wednesday… [Senator Al Franken via Boy Genius Report, and Gizmodo]

In other news regarding Congress and digital privacy, even though Amazon (and several interested consumer advocate groups) addressed the general privacy concerns/implications around its Kindle Fire web browser (called “Silk”), our old friend Congressman (and privacy maven) Ed Markey is still concerned. Less than satisfied with the answers Amazon gave, Markey said, “Amazon’s responses to my inquiries do not provide enough detail about how the company intends to use customer information, beyond acknowledging that the company uses this valuable information” [Representative Markey via PC World]

You may remember that the FTC and Facebook recently announced that they had reached a settlement in the Commission’s investigation of how Facebook handles user privacy. Well, while that’s certainly a step in the right direction, in that it subjects Facebook to FTC oversight for (at least) the next 20 years, and for all future updates with privacy implications to be opt-in for users, it was otherwise pretty late to the party (in the sense that there have been numerous changes affecting privacy over the last few years that basically go unaddressed and unpunished)… [TechCrunch]

And finally, piggybacking on the concept of FTC regulation – here’s a discussion of five ways we have currently tried to control/protect privacy for users on the web and on mobile, and the good and bad aspects of each… [paidcontent.org]