This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Brazil has demanded clarifications from the Canadian government about allegations that its spies targeted Brazil's mines and energy ministry, in what the Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, said appeared to be an act of industrial espionage.

The foreign minister, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, summoned the Canadian ambassador to "transmit the indignation of the Brazilian government and demand explanations," the foreign ministry said in a statement following the revelations, broadcast on Sunday night on Brazil's Globo network.

The report said the metadata of phone calls and emails to and from the ministry were targeted by Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE). It did not indicate if emails were read or phone calls listened to.

The report was based on documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and follows revelations that the US and the UK had also targeted Brazil..

During Monday's meeting, Figueiredo's statement expressed "the government's repudiation of this serious and unacceptable violation of national sovereignty and the rights of people and companies".

A spokeswoman for the CSE said it "does not comment on foreign intelligence gathering activities".

Ray Boisvert, a former high-ranking member of Canada's spy service and the deputy director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service until last year, said he thought Canada could have been using Brazil as part of a war game scenario and not for actual espionage. He added that he did not think industrial spying was taking place because "we're all too busy chasing things that could kill people, frankly".

Boisvert said the reports did not indicate it was about real targeting.

"It's a hypothetical thing, like 'could we do something?' Quite often it's an exercise and they'll use any country just to test the theories," he said.

In comments on Twitter on Monday, Rousseff said industrial espionage appeared to be behind the alleged spying. Canadian companies have large mining interests worldwide, including in Brazil.

In her Twitter comments, which the president's office confirmed were authentic, Rousseff also instructed mines minister Edison Lobão to strengthen the ministry's data protection systems.

American journalist Glenn Greenwald, based in Rio de Janeiro, worked with Globo on its report. Greenwald broke the first stories about the NSA's global spy programme focusing on internet traffic and phone calls.

Globo previously reported that the communications of Rousseff herself, and also state-run oil company Petrobras, were targeted by NSA spying.

Earlier, Greenwald wrote articles in the O Globo newspaper saying the NSA was gathering metadata on billions of emails, phone calls and other internet data flowing through Brazil, an important transit point for global communications.

The fallout over the spy programmes led Rousseff last month to cancel a planned visit to the US.

Rousseff last month spoke at the UN general assembly and called for international regulations on data privacy and limiting espionage programmes targeting the internet.