New Secret documents have now been revealed which indicates that GCHQ, the British surveillance agency, aided by the US National Security Agency, have stored millions of intercepted webcam captured images of internet users through Yahoo Messenger even though they have not been suspected of doing anything wrong.
The GCHQ
The files, which the GCHQ agency hold with them are between the year 2008 and 2010 and state explicitly that Optic Nerve, which is actually a codename for their surveillance program, and it had been still collecting the images of chats through Yahoo Messenger via the webcam and has saving them to their databases of the agency, even if the users have posed no threat as intelligence targets.
In the year 2008, in a single six-month period, the imagery collected from Webcam by the agency included images of a sexually explicit nature in vast quantities which are totaled over 1.8 million global yahoo messenger accounts.
Yahoo’s Response
When approached to the organization, the company stated that they do not have any knowledge prior to that or otherwise to the interception of Messenger and webcam images and they did not realize that these agencies had stooped to such a low level when it came to the privacy of users and violating their rights.
No Restrictions Put in Place
Collecting images of the UK or US citizens and storing them on their systems is something which the GCHQ is not able to do as they lack proper technical knowledge or way of doing this. In addition to that, no restrictions are in placed under UK law to put a stop to American’s images which are being accessible to analysts in Britain if there is no individual warrant issued.
Optic Nerve or the similar programs like this collects information or images in bulk from users, which are largely anonymous, while doing so, they are not able to filter out particular information from people in the US or the UK. Therefore, by UK law, the GCHQ agency does not have to remove, or ‘minimize’ any of the information on local citizens from any their databases. They needed analysts to have additional authorizations which are quite essential or legal before they start any kind of search on individuals and their data who at the time of the search are more than likely going in the British Isles.
When it comes to overlooking on people who are alleged to be in the US or any of the other ‘Five Eyes’ allied nations – Canada, Australia and New Zealand, legal safeguards for such searches are not in place.
Secret GCHQ Document Reveals
There are documents found showing that the struggles GCHQ agency has sustained in trying to keep the large store of explicit sexual images that Optical Nerve has collected from their staff, although there has been not at all or little discussion about the implications of the privacy of the people that storing such material has now been brought to light.
One of the documents which has been revealed has estimated that the harvested webcam images from Yahoo Messenger is between 3% and 11% ‘nudity that is undesirable’ which is what the GCHQ agency claims their database contains. Therefore, their reasoning behind the program is that they are trying to make the interface safer when it is used.