Use Yahoo Video Chats? You May Have Been Spied On

Everyday, it seems, there is new information released that makes individuals question how private their “private” lives really are. If it’s not revelations about the NSA intercepting our telephone calls and/or our emails, it seems to be something along those same lines. Unfortunately, in the year 2014, it doesn’t even seem like it’s even a remote possibility to have a private life. After all, if you own a smartphone you can most likely be found wherever you are. It seems all of the technology that is helping us run forward is also tying our hands behind our backs.

Edward Snowden shocked the world when we he released all of the confidential documents he “obtained” from the NSA. Even with all of the information he initially gave to the media, NSA officials were worried that more of their practices would eventually come to light. It turns out their fears weren’t without merit, as information about a British spy program known as Optic Nerve has recently been brought out into the open.

No, Not That Optic Nerve

It turns out that Optic Nerve is the codename for a surveillance program operated by Britain’s GCHQ (with help from the NSA). In an attempt to use facial recognition to catch terrorists and other wanted individuals, the images from 1.8 million users of Yahoo video chats from 2008 to 2010 were collected and stored on GCHQ’s servers. Obviously, most all of the images had nothing to do with terrorism whatsoever.

And, of all of the images stored, there were many images besides people’s faces, as it turns out that a large number of sexually explicit images from the video chats were also stored on the servers.

When Yahoo recently found out about this invasion of privacy, they were not at all happy about it, saying it was a total invasion of their users’ privacy rights, and stating they had no prior knowledge of the spying.

Does this news surprise you at all?

[Image via EverythingPR]

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