You’d think there would be nothing to gain by spying on people playing Angry Birds, but you might be surprised

Do you play Angry Birds on your phone? What else do you do on your phone? Do you check your email, send text messages, make phone calls, set up calendar notifications, and play other games? Well if so, the NSA is watching you.

It’s all the apps

It’s not just Angry Birds that releases information. In fact, government spy agencies are always trying to get as much information as possible to determine where there are threats. All apps store a certain amount of personal data, such as names, birthdates, and more. The spy agencies are simply looking for this information when they start using apps to spy on you. However, the NSA has made a statement that they are not constantly spying on you through your mobile phones.

What else do they use?

The reason why mobile phones are so powerful for spy agencies is that they can access so much information in one tiny place. All they have to do is gain access to your phone. This is us telling you to pay a little attention to the “Terms and Agreements” we so often skip. Once in, they have access to everything. Your social media accounts, bank accounts, past purchases, email, and anything else you might store on your phone. The NSA can easily access anything they want to know about you by simply getting access to your phone.

Sites fight back

In an effort to fight back and give more freedom of information, companies such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft and Yahoo have been fighting the government on privacy. They think the government has no business getting into your personal and private emails or messages to gather information without any kind of reason. Though they aren’t able to prevent the NSA from searching their databases for information, they are now allowed to release the statistics on how often data is retrieved, how much data is used (whether it is just names and emails or more in-depth than that), and whether or not those pulls of information are related to crime. Hopefully this kind of information will help the public see if the NSA really is abusing its power to get this information online.

Protecting your phones with encryptions

Unfortunately, the government’s reach is much more powerful than you can imagine, which means your phone may not be safe. The only thing you can do is take steps to ensure the security of your phone. Get everything encrypted and make sure the emails passed through are secure. At the very least, it will make it harder for the NSA to steal your information. Some people have even gone so far as to refuse using the fingerprint unlock on their iPhones because they are worried the fingerprint data will be stored by the government. It all depends on your own level of concern for phone privacy, and maybe it depends on whether or not you play Angry Birds.

Source: BBC News