USA's surveillance agency, the NSA and its British counterpart, may have already started using smart phone applications, including the popular Angry Birds games, to collect personal information on iPhone and Android users.
According to the Guardian, the NSA and UK spy agency GCHQ, are using such apps to collect data as personal as sexual orientation and preferences. Certain apps in particular are used because of the intimate information transmitted across the Internet by users.
The documents, provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden, elaborate on the agencies' pending efforts to utilize commercial data sharing for their ongoing investigations into possible terrorism. The efforts are based on the amount of data smart phone users regularly share online as digital age communications become more reliant on the Internet.
The New York Times reports that the previously undisclosed documents detail that certain so-called "leaky apps" are targeted because they collect sensitive data such as users' locations and phone tracking codes.
The two agencies have been working together on this project since 2007. They have been sharing information on how to acquire information via address books, buddy lists, and location data recorded into photos and statuses posted onto social media apps.
Although there has been previous knowledge of the broad expansion of government spying, the recently released documents reveal more details on the specific methods of snooping than ever before.
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