UK spies on explicit webcam activity of millions of Yahoo users

MILLIONS of Yahoo users have had their private webcam activity watched by UK spies according to leaked documents..

The Yahoo company logo on the Yahoo internet page

INTERNET giant Yahoo has branded claims that UK spy agency GCHQ intercepted and stored webcam images of millions of users as a "whole new level of violation".

In its latest report on files leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden, the Guardian newspaper claims a surveillance program operated by GCHQ, with aid from America's National Security Agency (NSA), collected still images of Yahoo webcam chats in bulk.

Codenamed Optic Nerve, the operation saved images to agency databases, regardless of whether individual users were suspected of wrongdoing, the newspaper said.

In a furious reaction to the report, a Yahoo spokeswoman said: "We were not aware of, nor would we condone, this reported activity.

"This report, if true, represents a whole new level of violation of our users' privacy that is completely unacceptable and we strongly call on the world's governments to reform surveillance law consistent with the principles we outlined in December.

"We are committed to preserving our users' trust and security and continue our efforts to expand encryption across all of our services."

GCHQ declined to comment on the claims.

Dating between 2008 and 2010, the GCHQ files reportedly show in one six-month period alone, the agency collected webcam imagery - including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications - from more than 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts globally.

Optic Nerve began as a prototype in 2008 and was still active in 2012, The Guardian reported.

The system was used for experiments in automated facial recognition, to monitor GCHQ's existing targets, and to discover new targets of interest, the newspaper added.

Rather than collecting webcam chats in their entirety, the program saved one image every five minutes from the users' feeds, The Guardian said, while sexually explicit webcam material proved to be a particular problem for GCHQ.

A previously top-secret document, found among 58,000 files taken by Mr Snowden - the former NSA contractor who fled to Russia, via Hong Kong, after leaking the information to four locations worldwide - said: "Unfortunately ... it would appear that a surprising number of people use webcam conversations to show intimate parts of their body to the other person.

"Also, the fact that the Yahoo software allows more than one person to view a webcam stream without necessarily sending a reciprocal stream means that it appears sometimes to be used for broadcasting pornography."

Between three and 11 per cent of the Yahoo webcam imagery harvested by GCHQ contains "undesirable nudity", the document reportedly said.