The documents, published Monday by The New York Times, the Guardianand ProPublica suggest that Washington’s National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) have targeted mapping, gaming, and social networking smartphone apps to gain access to huge amounts of personal data.
The news outlets were citing previously undisclosed intelligence documents made available by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Snowden is living in asylum in Russia and faces espionage charges in the US after disclosing details of the NSA’s massive surveillance programs last year.
According to the reports, the NSA and GCHQ have worked together to find ways to target “leaky” phone apps on smartphones that could disclose users’ locations, age and gender among other personal information.
The size and scope of the program was not clear, but the reports suggest that both spy agencies routinely get access to data generated by apps such as the popular Angry Birds game, a franchise that has been downloaded 1.7 billion times worldwide. The documents also revealed the Google Maps navigation service as a target.
Snowden’s revelations sparked a firestorm of criticism at home and abroad and prompted US President Barack Obama to announce intelligence-gathering reforms on Jan. 17, which include limits on the collection of telephone data and a ban on eavesdropping on the leaders of close allies.
The revelations have been especially scrutinized in Germany, where it was revealed the NSA was listening in on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone.
In response to the reports, GCHQ said it did not comment on intelligence matters, but said all of its activity was “authorized, necessary and proportionate.”
White House spokesman Jay Carney told a regular White House news conference Monday that US surveillance agencies were only interested in collecting data on people considered a threat to the US.
“To the extent data is collected by the NSA through whatever means, we are not interested in the communications of people who are not valid foreign intelligence targets, and we are not after the information of ordinary Americans,” he said.
Angry Birds may be angry and destructive, but they’re not spies.
Rovio Entertainment, creator of the popular mobile game on Tuesday said it does not work with the National Security Agency or other government agencies.
The Finland-based company was responding to news reports, based on leaked documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden, that said the NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, are taking advantage of weaknesses in mobile apps, including Angry Birds, to secretly collect user data.
Rovio said it “does not share data, collaborate or collude with any government spy agencies such as NSA or GCHQ anywhere in the world.”
However, the company said “the alleged surveillance may be conducted through third party advertising networks used by millions of commercial web sites and mobile applications across all industries.” Rovio did stress that it ‘does not allow any third party network to use or hand over personal end-user data from Rovio’s apps.”
But it added: “If advertising networks are indeed targeted, it would appear that no Internet-enabled device that visits ad-enabled web sites or uses ad-enabled applications is immune to such surveillance.”
And because of this, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed also said, “In order to protect our end users, we will, like all other companies using third party advertising networks, have to re-evaluate working with these networks if they are being used for spying purposes.”
