Andre Yoskowitz
17 Jan 2012 19:37
Sprint has confirmed today that it will be providing maintenance releases to its smartphone devices to remove Carrier IQ.
In December, Sprint, the largest user of Carrier IQ software in the U.S., said it was completely disabling the software in all of its devices. Although it was disabled, the remnants remained dormant. The carrier also admitted to using the software since 2006, and that it is installed on 26 million Sprint smartphones and tablets.
The new updates will also provide security enhancements and bug fixes, says the carrier.
Last month, following customer concerns over the rootkit, Sprint stopped collecting data using Carrier IQ even though they said they only used Carrier IQ to collect network- and device-related information for quality-of-service-related purposes.
Carrier IQ, which is installed in over 140 million Android, iOS and BlackBerry devices, can read the state of your phone at all times, log all keystrokes, see who you called, see who you texted, see what terms you have searched for, and log sleep/uptime.