The National Security Agency along with its other British spy agencies is reportedly keeping a watch on popular smartphone apps such as Angry Birds to gain access of users’ personal data.
A confidential National Security Agency (NSA) document leaked by Edward Snowden revealed that users’ information related to their location, websites visited and contacts are among the data the spy agencies are targeting from mobile applications.
The report published by The Guardian and The New York Times said that the NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ have been working together to develop ways and means to get access to users’ personal information from mobile phone and tablet applications.
Reports suggest that the security agencies gained data from a variety of mapping, gaming and social networking applications using the same techniques used to intercept mobile internet traffic and text message data.
According to the leaked documents, information coming from various mobile application ranges from phone model and screen size to personal details such as age, sex, marital status and location. The agencies also made use of their mobile interception capabilities to collect large volumes of location information in bulk, from Google and other mapping apps.
The NSA, in an official statement has clearly stated that it was not interested in data beyond “valid foreign intelligence targets”. The statement read “Any implication that NSA’s foreign intelligence collection is focused on the smartphone or social media communications of everyday Americans is not true”.
Rovio, the Angry Birds maker, said it had no knowledge of any such programs run by NSA or GCHQ aiming to extract data from its apps users.
Rovio’s VP of marketing and communications, Saara Bergstrom, said “Rovio doesn’t have any previous knowledge of this matter, and have not been aware of such activity in 3rd party advertising networks”.
“Nor do we have any involvement with the organizations you mentioned [NSA and GCHQ].”
