The NSA might be spying on you while you’re playing Angry Birds

Here's the latest revelation from documents leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

While you're enjoying slinging birds at pigs in Angry Birds, chances are that N.S.A might be tracking your personal information. According to documents leaked by Edward Snowden,  N.S.A and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters have been working since 2007 towards achieving a method to snatch data from smartphone apps that contain user's information. The amount of data gathering is not yet known, but reports suggest that data is collected from social network, mapping and gaming apps.

Earlier reports revealed N.S.A eavesdropping on phone calls as well as intercepting text messages in an effort to prevent terrorism acts. However a recent report by the Guardian indicates that every time the user launches a “leaky” application, the spying agencies can collect information related to user's location, sex, age and other personal information as well as the phone model and screen size.

When N.S.A was confronted regarding the report, it repeated again that it is concerned about privacy rights and only collect data that is “authorized by law”.

“The communications of people who are not valid foreign intelligence targets are not of interest to the National Security Agency,” spokeswoman Vanee Vines said in a statement.

“Any implication that NSA's foreign intelligence collection is focused on the smartphone or social media communications of everyday Americans is not true,” she said.

“We collect only those communications that we are authorized by law to collect for valid foreign intelligence and counter-intelligence purposes – regardless of the technical means used by the targets.”

According to the Guardian, the N.S.A has spent more than $1 billion on it's phone targeting campaign.

Source : The Guardian, New York Times
Via : RTE News