Angry Birds, Google Maps and other photo sharing apps like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr have been on many occasions suspected to be used to spy individual Smart-phones. Some of the biggest security agencies in the world such as the British and the National Security Agency (NSA) use these apps to collect useful data such as the age of a person, the places where a person visits on a daily basis, the addresses, activities etc. This is confirmed by the publications of Snowden Edward in The Guardian.
It is clear that both the British and the US government have been collecting data via the use of mobile phones. Nevertheless the new revelations in the report are shocking. The report reveals how far the apps are efficient in the data collection. Snowden Edward refers to the scenario as the mobile surge.
According to The New York Times, the program to tap data from mobile phones by the use of these common applications has been up and running from the year 2007. According to this endeavors by the two governments, their budgets rose significantly in the previous years. In the US, the NSA budget shot to $767 million from $204 million. This is due to the reason that the agency was concentrating on large phone data tapping and text messaging.
Since there is an increasing number of smart-phones which are activated each day, more and more data can be siphoned from our devices and used for intelligence. The report showed that if an Android user updates his or her software he or she will be uploading over 500 units of collectible data online. The exact amount of data that can be collected from a device using a Smartphone app is not really clear. However many researchers believe that the earliest apps to developed have proved much more effective in data tapping. These apps include Twitter, Facebook etc. The NSA even went ahead to label the Android devices and iPhones as ‘Golden Nugget’ which are very essential in data and information collection.
In many occasions, the designers of the applications are responsible for collecting the data. It is really unfortunate that when the terms pop up on the screen as service agreements, many Smartphone users ignorantly proceed through. This has the effect of allowing the user location, the phone codes, the personal information and the preferences to be uploaded. Rovio, the makers of Angry Birds revealed that it has been working with Baltimore. It is alleged also to work with Millennium Media whereby it embeds the ad services which help in gathering the users’ profile. This shows that approximately the application has managed to collect over a Billion profiles, the number of times it has been downloaded.
NSA is able to collect the data, analyze the same data into useful information and even store the data. The information can also be used for cross-referencing purposes with other intelligence agencies. According to the GCHQ and NSA requirements, there is no specified outlined mode of collecting data. This means that it the agency is empowered to collect data and information by the use of any means. It’s very clear that our lives can be compiled and the agency will be able to know where we are and what we are doing. Take an example of Facebook status, update and uploads; and location apps like maps. These applications can be used to locate the precise location where a user was or is.
The agencies not only use the applications to collect data but it has also been realized that they make use of the cookies as a tool for locating web locations all over the world. This enables them to pinpoint the location where a person for instance logged into a computer Facebook page or Twitter.
The twist of the matter is that in the report it is not indicated whether the companies which created the applications such as Rovio know about this operation. Hence it is unclear if there is collaboration with the security agencies. Furthermore, Rovio went ahead to distance itself from the allegations. The Vice President of Marketing and Communication, Mr. Saara Bergstrom told The Guardian that they do not have any dealings with the GCHQ and NSA.
Barrack Obama, the US president went ahead this month and said that the work to craft reforms that focus on collection of Smartphone users data has been initiated. In the same program while addressing the NSA programs, he said that it would involve the hazard of such programs and that the network providers should make an effort to publicize all the orders and measures that they receive from the agencies and government.
Despite all these efforts, the document stipulates that the agency has put the data to use. It is estimated that approximately for a given month, the NSA collected data produces 8,615,650 persons of interest and that it needed 120 computers.
