The Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCQH) has gotten sensitive images from millions of Yahoo users through intercepting video chats.
The Guardian reported Thursday that through a program named OPTIC NERVE, Britain's signals intelligence division, was able to capture sensitive images from 1.8 million Yahoo users in a six-month period in 2008. If deemed true and if the program is still functioning up to now, more or less 75 million users worldwide are at risk.
When asked about the matter, Yahoo told the Associated Press that it was not informed of such program and would never allow it. It even described the program as "a whole new violation of our users' privacy," and called on governments around the globe to modify their surveillance practices.
GCQH, on the other hand, refused to respond to questions about the program, but gave the same statement as it used to give: "It is a longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters" -- implying that everything they do is legal, necessary, fair, and subject to rigorous oversight.
OPTIC NERVE, which was disclosed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, was meant to identify targets with the use of automatic facial recognition software once they looked intently into their computer webcams. It is programmed to save just one image from the users' feeds every five minutes, which is to prevent its servers from overloading and to comply with human rights legislation.
In the intelligence document disclosed by Snowden, it was revealed that they found numerous people "use webcam conversations to show intimate parts of their body to the other person." An informal study even found that three to 11 percent of images captured contained "undesirable nudity."
Given that factual observation, the collection of snapshots raises questions about the possibility of blackmail especially when other leaked documents exposed discussions between the U.S National Security Agency (NSA) and GCHQ about leaking embarrassing material online to destroy reputations of their targets.
