NSA and GCHQ Grab Data From Games Apps On Phones

A report published by The Guardian, The New York Times and ProPublica states that the NSA and GCHQ, its British equivalent, routinely try to grab personal data from phone apps such as Angry Birds.

In response the NSA said:

“Any implication that NSA’s foreign intelligence collection is focused on the smartphone or social media communications of everyday Americans is not true. Moreover, NSA does not profile everyday Americans as it carries out its foreign intelligence mission. We collect only those communications that we are authorized by law to collect for valid foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes – regardless of the technical means used by the targets.

“Because some data of US persons may at times be incidentally collected in NSA’s lawful foreign intelligence mission, privacy protections for US persons exist across the entire process concerning the use, handling, retention, and dissemination of data. In addition, NSA actively works to remove extraneous data, to include that of innocent foreign citizens, as early as possible in the process.

“Continuous and selective publication of specific techniques and tools lawfully used by NSA to pursue legitimate foreign intelligence targets is detrimental to the security of the United States and our allies – and places at risk those we are sworn to protect.” (source)

The suggestion is that data is garnered by using a variety of mapping, gaming and social network applications using techniques similar to those used to intercept internet traffic and text message data.

The Angry Birds game has been downloaded 1.7 billion times around the world and a GCHQ report in 2012 explained how information could be extracted from phones on the Android operating system.

The report was compiled from the latest documents released by Edward Snowden.

Rovio, the makers of the Angry Birds app said they have no knowledge of the NSA or GCHQ targeting their game.

“Rovio doesn’t have any previous knowledge of this matter, and have not been aware of such activity in 3rd party advertising networks,” said Saara Bergström, Rovio’s VP of marketing and communications. “Nor do we have any involvement with the organizations you mentioned [NSA and GCHQ].”