Spy Agencies Know What Data Your Phone Apps Stream

The next time you play Angry Birds, life is not all peachy keen, as both the National Security Agency and its British counterpart have reportedly been exploiting the data that the game itself streams online. There has been dozens of previously undisclosed classified documents (courtesy of Edward Snowden) which actually showed that these apps will share a whole lot of personal information that can be tapped into by intelligence agencies – including the smartphone identification codes as well as your location.

To make things scarier, it did seem as though both the N.S.A. and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters were working together to figure out a way to collect and stash data from various smartphone apps even all the way back in 2007, and in the past few years, the agencies have also traded their methods when it comes to grabbing location and planning data whenever a “target” boots up and uses Google Maps, as well as checking in on your address books, buddy lists, telephone logs and geographic data embedded in photographs.

A 2011 British document did say that the efforts happen to be part of an initiative known as “the mobile surge,” which happens to be an analogy to the troop surges that occurred in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m sure it would not make you think thrice about booting up Angry Birds, but if you are a terrorist, you might want to go back playing with your Game Boy that remains disconnected.