Documents made public yesterday claim U.S. and UK intelligence agencies are retrieving personal data sent by mobile apps during mass surveillance sweeps. Rovio’s popular game, “Angry Birds” was mentioned as one of the apps targeted by the agencies. The company has now defended itself, denying any voluntary cooperation with any government agencies.
Rovio Entertainment Ltd, which is headquartered in Finland, does not share data, collaborate or collude with any government spy agencies such as NSA or GCHQ anywhere in the world.
There has been speculation in the media that NSA targets Angry Birds to collect end user data. The speculation is based on information from documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
The alleged surveillance may be conducted through third party advertising networks used by millions of commercial web sites and mobile applications across all industries. If advertising networks are indeed targeted, it would appear that no internet-enabled device that visits ad-enabled web sites or uses ad-enabled applications is immune to such surveillance. Rovio does not allow any third party network to use or hand over personal end-user data from Rovio’s apps.
Apple itself has been faced with similar allegations, and company CEO Tim Cook denied the reports, saying last week the NSA “would have to cart us out in a box” in order to gain access to Apple’s servers. Cook has also been a vocal proponent of increased transparency of government surveillance.
