Web Giants Reveal PRISM Data Requests
Several of the biggest web companies, including Google, Yahoo and Facebook, have revealed the amount of user data they have been asked to share with the US government. The revelations come after Edward Snowden, a contractor for the American National Security Agency (NSA), leaked details of a programme called PRISM, which apparently gathers web and mobile communications data from foreigners perceived to be a threat to the US, as well as anyone they may have been in contact with. The full extent of the claims has been denied by US politicians. President Obama said the spy agency wasn't "rifling" through the emails of ordinary users, and that the data it collected had helped prevent 50 terrorist attacks in the past 12 years.
The major web companies have also said that the claims about them compromising their users' privacy aren't entirely true, and they have denied that authorities had direct access to their servers. Facebook received more than 9,000 data requests in the last half of 2012 covering 18,000 accounts, while Microsoft received more than 6,000 across 31,000 accounts. Both companies stressed that these requests affected only a "tiny fraction" of their user accounts. Yahoo said it received more than 12,000 requests for data from the US government over the past 18 months, mostly concerning criminal investigations. However, CEO Marissa Mayer said the company was frustrated that it wasn't allowed to reveal how many were for national security reasons, because that information is classified by the US government. This view was echoed by Google, which said it didn't think it was right that criminal investigation requests were listed alongside data demands from security services. It has even filed a lawsuit asking the courts to force the government to let it publish more details about the data it passes over.
It's difficult to say how worried we should be, because it's unclear exactly how extensive the data collection has been. The whistleblower Edward Snowden's claims have naturally been denied by those he accuses, but the NSA and web companies haven't given us enough information to really understand how PRISM and other data-surveillance systems work. Suffice to say that the US security services may well have access to your email and social-networking accounts. Assuming you're a law-abiding citizen, there's no reason to panic about this. But such mass surveillance feels like an unwarranted invasion of our privacy and the ensuing outrage has led the web giants to finally speak up and demand more transparency about the data they're legally required to pass to the authorities. This will hopefully lead to us ordinary people having a better sense of how our data is being used, who has access to it and the nature of online spying by security services.
We admit this is a very complicated issue. It's no surprise that security services want access to our email and social-networking messages, tapping online movements as they would phone calls. However, the fact that the snooping is being performed by the NSA, one of the more secretive organisations in the US, is worrying. If the US government is grabbing data for legitimate reasons, there's no reason not to tell us about it. What's especially alarming is that UK citizens have been monitored by PRISM and other US surveillance schemes. Our own government doesn't seem too concerned about keeping our data safe, apparently permitting US spies to access the very messaging data that British politicians have been trying to gather via the Communications Data Bill. As we reported in our last issue, this so-called Snoopers' Charter has so far failed to pass into law, but that hasn't stopped our data from ending up in the hands of the US government. We think this is wrong, but sadly, there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it.
It's difficult to say how worried we should be, because it's unclear exactly how extensive the data collection has been. The whistleblower Edward Snowden's claims have naturally been denied by those he accuses, but the NSA and web companies haven't given us enough information to really understand how PRISM and other data-surveillance systems work. Suffice to say that the US security services may well have access to your email and social-networking accounts. Assuming you're a law-abiding citizen, there's no reason to panic about this. But such mass surveillance feels like an unwarranted invasion of our privacy and the ensuing outrage has led the web giants to finally speak up and demand more transparency about the data they're legally required to pass to the authorities. This will hopefully lead to us ordinary people having a better sense of how our data is being used, who has access to it and the nature of online spying by security services.
We admit this is a very complicated issue. It's no surprise that security services want access to our email and social-networking messages, tapping online movements as they would phone calls. However, the fact that the snooping is being performed by the NSA, one of the more secretive organisations in the US, is worrying. If the US government is grabbing data for legitimate reasons, there's no reason not to tell us about it. What's especially alarming is that UK citizens have been monitored by PRISM and other US surveillance schemes. Our own government doesn't seem too concerned about keeping our data safe, apparently permitting US spies to access the very messaging data that British politicians have been trying to gather via the Communications Data Bill. As we reported in our last issue, this so-called Snoopers' Charter has so far failed to pass into law, but that hasn't stopped our data from ending up in the hands of the US government. We think this is wrong, but sadly, there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it.
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