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Microsoft and Apple confirm no Carrier IQ spy software on iOS 5 or Windows Phone

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With the debate around Carrier IQ beginning to heat up, all the companies that don’t use the software are piping up. Quick to clean their hands of the mess, Apple and Microsoft have both made statements about Carrier IQ. Microsoft denies using it entirely and Apple says that it’s been off the app since iOS5 and is now clean and sober.

Microsoft

Head of Windows Phone, Joe Belfiore, tweeted the following about 18 hours ago: “Since people are asking– Windows Phones don’t have CarrierIQ on them either.” 

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Apple

The iPhone does not use Carrier IQ now, but the service may still linger on some devices, Apple said in a statement: “We stopped supporting CarrierIQ with iOS 5 in most of our products and will remove it completely in a future software update,” said Apple. “With any diagnostic data sent to Apple, customers must actively opt-in to share this information, and if they do, the data is sent in an anonymous and encrypted form and does not include any personal information. We never recorded keystrokes, messages or any other personal information for diagnostic data and have no plans to ever do so.”

The big question here is the word “most.” It means that some iOS 5 products still use Carrier IQ, but we don’t know which ones. And if you haven’t yet upgraded to iOS 5, your iPhone or iPad is likely using Carrier IQ as well. 

If not Carrier IQ, then what? 

The fact that iPhones and Windows Phones will not be using Carrier IQ is strange, as it means one of two things: either carriers are getting diagnostics only from Android phones or that Apple and Microsoft are simply using competing services (or their own) to deliver this data to wireless carriers. Do these services record more info than they’re supposed to as well? To see if you have Carrier IQ on your handset, check out our roundup of which manufacturers and carriers use Carrier IQ.

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Jeffrey Van Camp
Jeffrey Van Camp
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