GCHQ intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users worldwide

theguardian.com, Thursday 27 February 2014 09.08 EST     




Britain's surveillance agency GCHQ, with aid from the US National Security Agency, intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of wrongdoing, secret documents reveal.

GCHQ files dating between 2008 and 2010 explicitly state that a surveillance program codenamed Optic Nerve collected still images of Yahoo webcam chats in bulk and saved them to agency databases, regardless of whether individual users were an intelligence target or not.

In one six-month period in 2008 alone, the agency collected webcam imagery – including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications – from more than 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts globally.

Yahoo reacted furiously to the webcam interception when approached by the Guardian. The company denied any prior knowledge of the program, accusing the agencies of "a whole new level of violation of our users' privacy".

GCHQ does not have the technical means to make sure no images of UK or US citizens are collected and stored by the system, and there are no restrictions under UK law to prevent Americans' images being accessed by British analysts without an individual warrant.

The documents also chronicle GCHQ's sustained struggle to keep the large store of sexually explicit imagery collected by Optic Nerve away from the eyes of its staff, though there is little discussion about the privacy implications of storing this material in the first place.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo

England spies on its own citizens worse than East Germany did, for 'safety', yet they had a soldier hacked to death right out in public.

Quoted from Madam X

England spies on its own citizens worse than East Germany did, for 'safety', yet they had a soldier hacked to death right out in public.

forgot about that!

I think that all the spying on Germany is for economic interests.

funny how folks don't even raise an eyebrow over this!!!

1.8 MILLION!!!

STORED!!!!

They like to be thought of as goody two-shoes by their masters. As in, "if I'm not doing anything wrong, what difference does it make if somebody spies on me", or, "if it keeps me safe...". It doesn't keep anybody safe, and they are right, if they aren't doing anything wrong, it won't make a difference to them if they spy on you, they have nothing useful to gain.
Edward Snowden TOLD us they are sharing info with outside parties for economic reasons, yet no one seems alarmed.

funny ain't it how the globalists are pushing for globalization of the word's religion, government, monetary and economic systems.....YET.....there aren't any two countries that trust each other!!!