You might remember Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who revealed extensive internet and phone surveillance by US intelligence. A lot of people contemplate over whether he’s a patriot or a traitor, but the truth can only be found in his deeds.

The US government charged Mr Snowden with theft of government property, unauthorised invasion of communication, and wilful communication of classified information privy to the government. He’s known for acting uptight on the “right to information”, and that’s exactly what he did recently.

During the Athens Democracy Forum at the National Library in Athens, Edward warned people and asked them not to use Google’s Allo- an instant mobile messaging app.

Snowden claims that it allows the company to read and see everything that you share.

What is #Allo? A Google app that records every message you ever send and makes it available to police upon request. https://t.co/EdPRC0G7Py — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 21, 2016

On May 18, Google announced the app and on September 21, 2016, it launched it for Apple and Android users. This app could act as an alternative for WhatsApp.

The app comes with a robot that observes and stores everything that is written or shared and then keeps the data for future analysis to improve the app.

However, according to Google, they are only aiming at improvising the app and making it a better experience for users. The app can read through conversations and try and work out how people talk – it can then use that data to suggest what they might want to say to their friends.

In seriousness, this is a complex question for which there is no one right answer. But relative to #Allo, Signal is safer for normal users. — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 21, 2016

Furthermore, just like your Gmail, Google might use the data to feature ads in the future. Since the personal chat may have specific keywords or sensitive data, it will be easier for Google to place ads accordingly.

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And this is what differentiates it from other services like iMessage or WhatsApp. Conversations on Allo will be read and stored, thus there’s a fair chance of them being accessible by law.

Snowden had already called Allo "dangerous" after it was revealed at Google's I/O conference earlier this year.