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UK spy agency GCHQ intercepted images from the webcams of millions of Yahoo customers, secret documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.

Between 2008 and 2012 a piece of surveillance software called Optic Nerve took still images from Yahoo webcam chats and stored them on GCHQ databases. Millions of Yahoo customers were affected.


According to the Guardian's report, the documents also show that the intelligence agency had problems making sure that the images weren't seen by staff members -- between 3 percent and 11 percent of images were described as containing "undesirable nudity". So it looks as though the webcam paranoia of tele-masturbators is entirely founded.

Details about Optic Nerve were found -- surprise, surprise -- in documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The tool -- which saved an image every five seconds -- was used to test automated facial recognition software, with a view to using it to identify terrorists who might be using a range of online pseudonyms.

Somewhat naively, GCHQ was surprised by the level of nudity found in webcam footage. The Guardian piece has picked out a wonderful quote from one of the leaked documents: "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." Bless.

Yahoo is, understandably, fuming. A spokesperson gave this statement to Wired.co.uk: "We were not aware of nor would we condone this reported activity. 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. We are committed to preserving our users' trust and security and continue our efforts to expand encryption across all of our services."

You can read the report -- by Spencer Ackerman and James Ball -- in full on theguardian.com.