SECRET reports leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden have
revealed how UK mass surveillance of phone and internet activity was
accessed by Scottish police forces.
The documents confirm that a little-known policing body called the Scottish Recording Centre (SRC) was given access to information logs that include millions of communications data, including phone activity, internet histories and social media behaviour on Facebook.
The confirmation that UK state spy agency GCHQ ran a specific programme, called “Milkwhite”, to share data with devolved policing and tax authorities is the first Snowden leak to directly implicate Scottish authorities in the controversial policy of bulk data collection.
American news site The Intercept, which has access to the Snowden files, explained Milkwhite gave “an obscure Scotland-based surveillance unit” access to “huge troves of meta-data” from UK state surveillance.
Metadata includes who a surveillance target is calling, emailing, what websites they visit, and, when location data is available, a person’s movements. The scale of secret surveillance caused global outrage over a lack of transparency, invasions of privacy and abuses of power when the first Snowden documents were released in 2013.
In 2007, UK spies drew up secret plans to snoop on the activities of “every visible user on the internet”. UK state lawyers admitted six years later that the number of people targeted was an “infinite list”. New leaked government reports claim that spies are gathering so much information that it risks harming effective security operations.
Source: http://www.cryptogon.com/?p=48975
The documents confirm that a little-known policing body called the Scottish Recording Centre (SRC) was given access to information logs that include millions of communications data, including phone activity, internet histories and social media behaviour on Facebook.
The confirmation that UK state spy agency GCHQ ran a specific programme, called “Milkwhite”, to share data with devolved policing and tax authorities is the first Snowden leak to directly implicate Scottish authorities in the controversial policy of bulk data collection.
American news site The Intercept, which has access to the Snowden files, explained Milkwhite gave “an obscure Scotland-based surveillance unit” access to “huge troves of meta-data” from UK state surveillance.
Metadata includes who a surveillance target is calling, emailing, what websites they visit, and, when location data is available, a person’s movements. The scale of secret surveillance caused global outrage over a lack of transparency, invasions of privacy and abuses of power when the first Snowden documents were released in 2013.
In 2007, UK spies drew up secret plans to snoop on the activities of “every visible user on the internet”. UK state lawyers admitted six years later that the number of people targeted was an “infinite list”. New leaked government reports claim that spies are gathering so much information that it risks harming effective security operations.
Source: http://www.cryptogon.com/?p=48975