The mysterious case of Carrier IQ and its software that some claim is tracking every move on our phones continues, as the company denies ever providing phone users’ data to the FBI for law enforcement purposes.

Last week a reporter from Muckrock News filed a Freedom Of Information Act request to obtain records from the FBI for “manuals, documents of other written guidance used to access or analyze data” gathered by any Carrier IQ program, says the Washington Post. The FBI denied the request, saying anything they have collected would be used for law enforcement purposes.

An immediate backlash from smartphone users who wouldn’t want their personal info sent to the FBI unbeknownst to them prompted Carrier IQ to deny they’ve ever sent a thing.

Their statement reads:

Carrier IQ has never provided any data to the FBI. If approached by a law enforcement agency, we would refer them to the network operators because the diagnostic data collected belongs to them and not Carrier IQ. Carrier IQ’s data is not designed to address the special needs of law enforcement. The diagnostic data that we capture is mostly historical and won’t reveal where somebody is and what they are doing on a real-time basis.

The Carrier IQ brouhaha began when a researcher released a video he claimed showed every keystroke he made being documented by the software. They’ve denied using that info to track users.

Carrier IQ: We’ve never provided info to the FBI [Washington Post]

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