Mobile Device Privacy Act is on its way to becoming a law

Tecca

Straight out of the Why-Wasn't-This-A-Thing-Before file comes the announcement today that the Mobile Device Privacy Act actually is a thing now. Back in January, we first told you about the piece of proposed legislation from Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) who was concerned about the privacy of mobile device customers after the introduction of Carrier IQ.

If you recall, Carrier IQ is the software company that flared up a bit of controversy when it was discovered that its software tools may be used to track everything from the keystrokes to the visited URLs of unsuspecting customers. The company denied these claims, but Congressman Markey quickly got the ball rolling to propose a law against it ever happening. This is especially important since Carrier IQ was already under federal investigation for wiretapping violations.

So with this new bill in place, anyone who sells a mobile service, device, or app must inform customers if that product contains any type of monitoring software. Penalties range from $1,000 per unintentional violation to $3,000 per intentional violation. As the bill makes its way through the process of becoming a law, many are claiming that it misses the mark by not providing enough specifics for ethical data collection.

[Image credit: Justice via Shutterstock]

This article was written by Shawn Schuster and originally appeared on Tecca

More from Tecca: