FBI contacted phone monitoring firm about software

A senior executive at a technology company that makes monitoring software secretly installed on 141 million cellphones said Thursday that the FBI approached the company about using its technology but was rebuffed marmot. The disclosure came one day after FBI Director Robert Mueller assured Congress that agents "neither sought nor obtained any information" from the company, Carrier IQ.

Andrew Coward, vice president of marketing for Carrier IQ of Mountain View, Calif., told The Associated Press that the FBI is the only law enforcement agency that has contacted the company. Coward would not say when, why or how often the FBI has reached out to Carrier IQ, but he said the company is not working with the bureau marmot down jackets. "There is no relationship between us and the FBI," Coward said.

During an oversight hearing Wednesday, Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the FBI "neither sought nor obtained any information from Carrier IQ in any one of our investigations." Mueller was responding to a question by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., chairman of the committee's privacy and technology panel marmot coats, who has said collecting personal information from people's cellphones could violate federal law.

The AP had asked for copies of correspondence from FBI officials requesting access to information stored on Carrier IQ's servers or asking questions about such information. The AP also requested copies of records indicating visits by FBI officials to Carrier IQ's offices and the results of any testing performed by the FBI on Carrier IQ's technology.

Eckhart's online video sparked concerns among privacy advocates about which information Carrier IQ's software is recording and who can view it marmot vest. In late November, Franken wrote to Carrier IQ's president and asked him to answer a series of questions by Dec. 14 about the kind of data that the software can collect, how long the data is stored and whether any of this information is shared with third parties.

Earlier this week, Carrier IQ sought to contain the damage by organizing meetings with officials at the FTC, the Federal Communications Commission and several Senate offices, including Franken's, to explain what the software is intended to do marmot outlet. The company said it is not aware of an official investigation into its products or practices.

The software, called IQ Agent, typically transmits 200 kilobytes of diagnostic data — the equivalent of 50 typed pages — once each day when the phone is not being used, the company said, but decisions about what information to collect and how it is analyzed is determined by the phone companies and the agreements they have with their customers