(RNN) - New legislation could require cell phone providers to be more up front about what kind of data it collects from subscribers and why, just days after the country observed its fourth annual National Data Privacy Day on Jan. 28.
A discussion draft of the Mobile Device Privacy Act, aimed at letting mobile users decide what is private and what is available to service providers, was released by Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-MA, on Monday.
The legislation could require cell phone companies to tell customers what monitoring software is installed on his or her phone, what information is being collected, who is seeing it and why. It would also require consent from the phone owner before monitoring can begin.
"While consumers rely on their phones, their phones relay all sorts of information about them, often without their knowledge or consent," Markey said.
The proposed bill, which has not yet been introduced to Congress, comes in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling that GPS devices could not be used to monitor a suspect without consent or a proper search warrant. The case left some wondering whether the opinion would be relevant in cases relying on warrantless GPS monitoring administered through cell phones.
"I am concerned about the threat to consumers' privacy posed by electronic monitoring software on mobile phones, such as the software developed by Carrier IQ," Markey said.
In November 2011, there was public outcry after it was discovered that Carrier IQ software, installed on 26 million active Sprint Nextel phones alone, could be used to obtain information about the content of users' text messages or website visits.
The software's ability to log a user's keystrokes was revealed after security researcher Trevor Eckhart posted a video allegedly showing the software in action, logging information from his text messages and web searches and saving it.
The mobile analytics company denied using their technology to monitor subscribers, insisting that the software is "designed to help mobile network providers diagnose critical issues that lead to problems such as dropped calls and battery drain," according to a news release.
Service providers AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile along with manufacturers HTC, Samsung and Motorola, had all admitted to using or installing the software on their devices.
The debacle had the company, along with the service providers and manufacturers using the technology, answering to the Senate's Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Al Franken, D-MN, chairman of the Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, sent letters to the businesses, asking what information was gathered by the software and why. The service providers and Carrier IQ all insisted the information gathered for dissemination was legal and pertained to making sure service was optimized.
In a letter responding to Franken's line of questioning, AT&T's Executive Vice President Tim McKone wrote that Carrier IQ "provides us with a device-side view of the customer's experience - a view that cannot be obtained from the network alone."
The mobile analytics company released a statement Dec. 1, 2011 with Rebecca Bace, a former security expert at the National Security Agency, saying the "allegations of keystroke collection or other surveillance of mobile device user's content are erroneous."
The software was being phased out of Apple products at the time of the uproar.
Copyright 2012 Raycom News Network. All rights reserved.
New legislation could require cell phone service providers to disclose what information they are gathering from subscribers and why. (Source: Jose Oller/flickr)
Rep. Edward Markey, D-MA, addresses the Joint Hearing on Internet Privacy on July 14, 2011. Markey is co-chair of the Bi-Partisan Congressional Privacy Caucus. (Source: Congressman Ed Markey/YouTube)
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