place Google AdSense code here
GCHQ,
the British surveillance agency, nicked and stored the webcam pictures
of millions of Internet users who weren’t even suspected of
wrongdoing.Snowden revelations exposed GCHQ files dating between 2008
and 2010 which showed that a surveillance program called Optic Nerve
collected still images of Yahoo webcam chats massively and saved them to
agency databases.
The Guardian, which publishes Snowden leaks, pointed out that GCHQ stored webcam images, including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications, from over 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts all over the world. This data came from documents made public by the former NSA contractor and Yahoo is now incandescent with rage. Of course, the tech giant denied any prior knowledge of the program, accusing the agencies of a whole new level of violation of its users’ privacy. Apparently, the users should be outraged as well.
It seems that the surveillance agency wanted to keep the large store of sexually explicit imagery collected by Optic Nerve program away from the eyes of its employees to prevent leaks. Optic Nerve was still active back in 2012, as is said at an internal GCHQ wiki page accessed that year.
GCHQ explained that it wanted to use the collected images for experiments in automated facial recognition and in order to monitor GCHQ’s existing targets, as well as to discover new targets of interest. They say that such searches could be used to find alleged terrorists or criminals using multiple, anonymous user IDs.
It is known that the program in question saved one picture every 5 minutes from the users’ feeds, in part trying to comply with human rights legislation, while in part trying to avoid overloading GCHQ’s servers.
One of the leaked documents even compared the program’s mass access to Yahoo webcam images and events to a massive digital police mugbook of previously arrested people. Snowden papers say that mass surveillance on Yahoo users was begun because Yahoo webcam was known to be used by GCHQ targets.
The Guardian, which publishes Snowden leaks, pointed out that GCHQ stored webcam images, including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications, from over 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts all over the world. This data came from documents made public by the former NSA contractor and Yahoo is now incandescent with rage. Of course, the tech giant denied any prior knowledge of the program, accusing the agencies of a whole new level of violation of its users’ privacy. Apparently, the users should be outraged as well.
It seems that the surveillance agency wanted to keep the large store of sexually explicit imagery collected by Optic Nerve program away from the eyes of its employees to prevent leaks. Optic Nerve was still active back in 2012, as is said at an internal GCHQ wiki page accessed that year.
GCHQ explained that it wanted to use the collected images for experiments in automated facial recognition and in order to monitor GCHQ’s existing targets, as well as to discover new targets of interest. They say that such searches could be used to find alleged terrorists or criminals using multiple, anonymous user IDs.
It is known that the program in question saved one picture every 5 minutes from the users’ feeds, in part trying to comply with human rights legislation, while in part trying to avoid overloading GCHQ’s servers.
One of the leaked documents even compared the program’s mass access to Yahoo webcam images and events to a massive digital police mugbook of previously arrested people. Snowden papers say that mass surveillance on Yahoo users was begun because Yahoo webcam was known to be used by GCHQ targets.
0 comments: Post Yours! Read Comment Policy ▼
PLEASE NOTE:
We have Zero Tolerance to Spam. Chessy Comments and Comments with Links will be deleted immediately upon our review.
Post a Comment