WASHINGTON-US senators said British and US spy agencies showed a “breathtaking insufficient respect” for privacy after reports that they had intercepted and stored pictures from webcams utilized by an incredible number of Yahoo users.
Files from Britain’s communications spy agency GCHQ leaked by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden unmasked the way the Optic Nerve program collected still pictures of webcam chats whether or not individual users were suspects or maybe not, the Guardian newspaper reported.
In a single six-month period in 2008, the British spy agency collected webcam imagery from a lot more than 1 ) 8 million Yahoo user accounts all over the world, the Guardian said.
The info collected, that was open to NSA analysts through routine information sharing, contained a substantial level of sexual content.
“We are really troubled by today’s press report a large amount of people - including law-abiding Americans - could have had private videos of themselves and their own families intercepted and stored without the suspicion of wrongdoing, ” Democratic US Senators Ron Wyden, Mark Udall and Martin Heinrich said in a joint statement.
“If this report is accurate, it could show a breathtaking insufficient respect for the privacy and civil liberties of law-abiding citizens. ”
They promised to research the experience within a continuing comprehensive overview of surveillance programs, with close scrutiny to any role US agencies could have played.
“It is now clearer and clearer that more must be achieved to make sure that ‘foreign’ intelligence collection will not intrude unnecessarily on the rights of law-abiding people or needlessly undermine the competitiveness of America’s leading industries, ” the senators added.
Yahoo, that was apparently opted for because its webcam system was regarded as utilized by GCHQ targets, expressed outrage at the reported surveillance.
“We weren't alert to nor would we condone this reported activity, ” a spokeswoman for the united states technology firm told AFP within an email statement.
“This report, if true, represents a complete new degree of violation of our users’ privacy that's completely unacceptable.
“We are focused on preserving our users’ trust and security and keep on our efforts to expand encryption across our services. ”
Leaked GCHQ documents from 2008 to 2010 explicitly make reference to the surveillance program, even though Guardian said later information suggested it had been still active in 2012.
The info was useful for experiments in automated facial recognition, in addition to monitor existing GCHQ targets and find out new ones, the British paper said.
This program reportedly saved one image every 5 minutes from the webcam user’s feed, partly to adhere to human rights legislation and partly to decrease the sheer level of data being collected.
GCHQ analysts could actually search the metadata, such as for example location and amount of webcam chat, plus they could view the specific pictures where in fact the username was much like a surveillance target.
In a statement to the Guardian, GCHQ said most of its work was “carried out relative to a strict legal and policy framework which means that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate”.
