If you thought that nude photo you took of yourself was just for you and your significant other, you might be wrong.

According to whistleblower Edward Snowden, young NSA employees occasionally get hold of nude photos while searching through personal data and, if the person is attractive, the photos get passed around the office.

Snowden explained how this happens to The Guardian during a seven-hour interview.

Here's the relevant bit:

You’ve got young enlisted guys, 18 to 22 years old, they’ve suddenly been thrust into a position of extraordinary responsibility where they now have access to all of your private records.

Now in the course of their daily work, they stumble across something that is completely unrelated to their work in any sense. For example, an intimate nude photo of someone in a sexually compromising situation, but they’re extremely attractive.

So what do they do? They turn around and they show their coworker. And their coworker says ‘Oh hey, that’s great. Show it to Bill down the way.’ And then Bill sends it to George, George sends it to Tom, and sooner or later this person’s whole life has been seen by all of these other people.

It’s never reported, no one ever knows about it because the auditing of these systems is incredibly weak. The fact that your private records, your private lives, records of your intimate moments have been taken from your private communication stream, from your intended recipient, by the government without any specific need, is a violation of your rights.

You can watch the interview here. The part about sharing nude photos within the NSA is at the 10-minute mark.

[via The Verge]