Have millions of webcam users had their sex pictures harvested by the NSA?

Britain’s spy agency collected webcam images – including sexually explicit material – from millions of innocent internet users.

Agents at GCHQ intercepted streamed webcam chats from Yahoo users and stored their images using a surveillance programme codenamed Optic Nerve.

In one six-month period in 2008, the intelligence agency collected images from more than 1.8million Yahoo users around the world – regardless of whether they were terror suspects or not.

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Claim: Cheltenham-based UK spy agency GCHQ has reportedly harvested webcam images - including sexually explicit material - of millions of internet users

Leaked top-secret documents reveal that up to 11 per cent of the stored images contained ‘undesirable nudity’.

The revelations are the latest from a batch of files published by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the US defence worker who has exposed shocking details of how spy agencies snoop on people around the world.

Optic Nerve – which critics last night branded eerily reminiscent of telescreens in George Orwell’s novel 1984 – was run with the aid of the US National Security Agency.

It was intended for use in experiments in automated facial recognition to try to find terror suspects.

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Anger: Internet giant Yahoo reacted furiously to the claims, branding them a 'whole new level of violation'

Rather than collecting webcam chats in their entirety, the system saved one image every five minutes from the users’ feeds between 2008 and 2010.

'Unfortunately  … it would appear that a surprising number of people use webcam conversations to show intimate parts of their body to the other person'
GCHQ

But documents leaked to The Guardian revealed that sexually explicit pictures proved to be a problem for GCHQ.

One comment from the agency read 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.’ Internet giant Yahoo reacted furiously to the claims.

A spokesman said: ‘We were not aware of, nor would we condone, this reported activity.

Ongoing: In its latest report on files leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden (pictured), the Guardian newspaper claims a surveillance programme collected still images of Yahoo webcam chats

‘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.

'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'
Yahoo spokesman

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

Tory MP David Davis said: ‘This is, frankly, creepy. It is perfectly proper for our intelligence agencies to use any and all means to target people for whom there are reasonable grounds for suspicion of terrorism, kidnapping and other serious crimes.

‘It is entirely improper to extend such intrusive surveillance on a blanket scale to ordinary citizens.’

Allegation: GCHQ is understood to have secretly accessed fibre-optic cables carrying huge amounts of internet and communications data and shared the information with the NSA (whose offices in Maryland are pictured)

Nick Pickles, director of civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: ‘This is an indiscriminate and intimate intrusion on people’s privacy.

'Orwell's 1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual'
Nick Pickles, Big Brother Watch

'Orwell’s 1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.’

GCHQ declined to comment on the claims.

Mr Snowden originally leaked information about the attempts by government spy agencies to harvest private information from millions of people.

Earlier this year, MI5 director general Andrew Parker warned that revealing details about GCHQ’s work was a ‘gift to terrorists’.

U-TURN OVER BAN ON CCTV PARKING FINES

Controversial CCTV cameras that target millions of motorists for parking fines are set to survive a promised Government cull, it emerged yesterday.
The use of enforcement cameras outside schools and other sensitive areas could carry on despite a previous vow to ban them.
Roads minister Robert Goodwill told a conference of parking chiefs that, when it came to scrapping all the cameras, ‘no decisions had been made’, and that they might still be used outside schools.
That contradicted previous pledges to  outlaw all of the controversial cameras,  which can issue penalties of up to £130 a  time. Communities Secretary Eric Pickles  had previously vowed to ban them, accusing ‘bullying’ councils of fleecing drivers ‘on an industrial scale’.
Councils rake in £30million a year from CCTV-led parking fines.
A Government consultation on the issue also stated: ‘The Government intends to abolish use of CCTV cameras for parking enforcement.’
Mr Goodwill was speaking at a summit in London organised by the British Parking Association, which represents 700 councils and private sector operators.