Free Tools To Check If Carrier IQ Is Running On Your Android Device

Recently, there is a huge controversy going on around Carrier IQ and the Internet has been abuzz with mentions of it.

If you don’t know what Carrier IQ is, well here is a brief introduction about it. Carrier IQ is a software that runs on more than 140 million mobile phones (according to Carrier IQ website). It is a monitoring software to track user activities, including their personal information, locations, network communications, phone calls, messages and more. If you want to know about Carrier IQ in-depth read this article by Engadget.

Carrier IQ was apparently designed to give metrics to help mobile carriers improve their services, but in some circumstances, the software is not offered as an opt-out feature and in many cases users don’t even know it’s there, tracking all interactions with their mobile phone.

Coming back to the main purpose of this article, we are here sharing some free tools for Android users that will help them find out if their Android device has Carrier IQ or not. Click on the title of the app to download it from the Android Market.

Carrier IQ Detector by Lookout Labs

Carrier IQ Detector helps mobile users find if their device is having Carrier IQ. According to the application description, the app does not remove Carrier IQ software as Carrier IQ software is deeply integrated with the handset firmware. Users would be required to get special device privileges to remove it. Side effects of this process have the potential to put users at further risk of Malware infection while making devices ineligible to receive firmware updates in the future.

carrier-iq-detector

If you have made earlier attempts to remove Carrier IQ software from your device, Carrier IQ Detector may still report its presence. This can be caused by incomplete removal attempts that do not remove all relevant files.

Bitdefender Carrier IQ Finder

Bitdefender Carrier IQ Finder reveals the presence of the Carrier IQ mobile network diagnostic tool and, if found, also tells the user whether it has been enabled by the carrier. The app also will not be able to remove Carrier IQ package because of the same above reason, so it can be uninstalled only through special privileges (root).

bitdefender-carrier-iq-finder

Voodoo Carrier IQ detector

François Simond (supercurio) has developed the app for any Android devices. The developer warns that this is an unfinished but working app. It is available for download from the Android Market. The open source code of the app is available at GitHub for anyone looking to improve it.

Voodoo Carrier IQ detector

Logging Test App by TrevE (available only through XDA-Developers forum)

The developer describes the app at the XDA-Developers forum thread as:

This app has started to turn into a full security suite. It can be used to verify what logging is being done on your phone and where data is going to. It will help you in manually removing parts you do not running.

You may use this version of the app anywhere and redistribute it. I have only tested on e3d, but it should work everywhere. I have heard it working on thunderbolt and e4g so far.

For advanced checking using this app, you need root access to your Android device. You can download the app from XDA-Developers forum.

Note: This app also allows you to remove Carrier IQ. To remove it, you have to do the following:

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