A recent report by the the Guardian newspaper has revealed that the UK government had made plans to use Microsoft’s Kinect hardware for the purposes of surveillance. The GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), Britain’s own surveillance agency who are working alongside the National Security Agency, have been criticised already over monitoring webcam activity of some 1.8 million users, particularly through Yahoo!
Since Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA surveillance techniques – in which it was revealed that millions of Americans were having their details monitored through Skype, Facebook and other widely popular internet services – many consumers have been concerned about their own personal privacy.
The Xbox One’s mandatory use of the Kinect controller came under heavy fire months prior to release as the public became concerned over privacy issues. Since then, Microsoft removed mandatory use of the device, but the hardware is still a required peripheral to play the new generation console and is shipped with the device itself. However, it is no longer required to be connected 24/7, which was its original intention.
The Guardian reported that the government’s interest in Kinect usage was to become part of a monitoring program referred to as Optic Nerve. These activities are not new and have been the subject of stories in the past. Just last year, Microsoft’s online console service, Xbox Live, had been under scrutiny when accusations about government intervention came to light.
While the GCHQ have told the newspaper that all their actions are done lawfully and out of necessity, many large corporations, such as Google, are asking for debates to be left open about the subject of mass surveillance and whether or not personal information needs to be stored indefinitely by governments and agencies.
This is an issue which will be of interest to many gamers across the globe. If you have any thoughts about these recent reports, let us know in the comments.