`User-tracking software secretly installed on smartphones`

Mobile telecommunications service providers in the U.S. have collected information on subscribers` phone records, text messages and locations through the software Carrier IQ, which was embedded in 140 million smartphones without user consent.

Most Android-based handsets made by Samsung Electronics, HTC, Nokia and other mobile phone makers and older models of Apple`s iPhones have the software embedded on them. A former employee of Carrier IQ also claimed that mobile phone service providers in Korea asked handset manufacturers to pre-install the software on their products.

According to major U.S. news outlets Thursday, Sprint and AT&T, two of the top three U.S. mobile operators, admitted to using Carrier IQ to collect data on the smartphone use of their subscribers without prior consent.

The software transmits to the developer`s servers in real time almost all information about subscriber activities, including the content of text messages, website visits, phone records, locations and video content viewed.

Sprint and AT&T, which received customer information from Carrier IQ, said in a statement that they used the collected data to analyze network and service performances and not for other purposes. They failed to say why they did not get subscribers` consent, however.

Carrier IQ said on its Internet homepage that it provided wireless carriers and handset makers "unprecedented insight into their customers` mobile experience" and claimed that its software was on 141.3 million handsets as of Thursday.

A Samsung source confirmed that the Korean tech giant sold handsets embedded with the controversial software to American consumers "at the request of U.S. mobile carriers." Samsung, however, denied that the software was pre-installed on its handsets sold in the Korean market.

Korea`s three mobile carriers -- SK Telecom, KT and LG U+ -- officially denied asking handset manufacturers to pre-install the software. A former employee of Carrier IQ told The Dong-A Ilbo, however, that Korean mobile carriers asked handset makers to pre-install the software around 2006, when smartphones were not widely used in Korea.

Korean mobile carriers apparently attempted to use the software to analyze feature phones` performance to improve mobile network services.

witness@donga.com coolj@donga.com