[Chapter-delegates] EU personal data protection laws and trojan software Iqcarrier active on romanian cellular devices

[Eduard Tric]

Hi all ,
After the recent  announcements   of carrierIQ being present on Android platform, we made a fast inspection of some iphones, looking for relevant strings, being confident that IOS was not affected. To our surprise, this piece of software is up and running also  on IOS-based mobile devices. The logs are binary encoded or encrypted, so that a normal user cannot verify the content of the information stored on their device.  Unlike the other programs active on IOS, this piece of software is not at any time controllable via the visible user interface of the operation system , promoting  IQcarrier as a brilliant canditate for a spyware or trojan .

Witch brings us to the question: Is this legal in Romania ? 
Is this Legal in Europe? What about the rest of the world ?

Due to request received from our members, Isoc Romania will start collecting information about this issue , first from romanian users (about their opinion but also the extent of the installed park : Os platforms , telecom operators, devices) , then from telecom operators (if they wish to cooperate) and  eventually present the file to Romanian Data protection authority and to the Government.

As this is also a global privacy concern ,we would like to hear about this issue from other chapters . Maybe we can have a coordinated approach and response.

Our understanding at this point is that the software house CarrierIq designed a data mining tool, but it was  the mobile device manufacturer and eventually  the telecom operator legal responsability to preinstall and customize its behavior  in every country. CarrierIq pointed out the fact (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=legx3K_Ul_I ) that the telecom operator should pre-inform the users and propose opt-in forms about the usage of their software. It seems that this was not the case , at least not in Romania. 
What about your country?

Regards,
Ed
Isoc Romania
http://isoc.ro

Relevant links:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/secret-software-logging-video/ 
http://blog.chpwn.com/post/13572216737 ( Carrier IQ on iphone as well)
http://www.carrieriq.com/index.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=legx3K_Ul_I (Carrieriq presentation)
http://www.yourprojectnews.com/news_item.php?newsID=36828 (Portugal local context)