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# The NSA is watching you through Angry Birds
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/nsa-watching-you-through-angry-birds/
- Published: 2014-01-28T20:56:33.000Z
- Updated: 2015-11-17T16:24:02.000Z
- Description: The NSA and its British chums across the pond have been using a backdoor in ad-supported mobile apps—specifically, Angry Birds—to mine sensitive data, according to The New York Times. This includes Google Map locations, websites visited, and buddy lists, according to newly declassified documents lea
- Author: Jason Johnson
- Tags: News, Angry Birds, nsa, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-26 09:39

The NSA and its British chums across the pond have been using a backdoor in ad-supported mobile apps—specifically, *Angry Birds*—to mine sensitive data, [according to The New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/world/spy-agencies-scour-phone-apps-for-personal-data.html?ref=killscreen.com). This includes Google Map locations, websites visited, and buddy lists, according to newly declassified documents leaked to the press by Edward Snowden. And you thought you were just flicking a peeved canary dressed as Obi-Wan into a very flimsy Deathstar.

It sucks that government snooping has tainted the beautiful thing that is free mobile games, but it’s not unprecedented. We already knew that the NSA had [spies inside of *World of Warcraft*](http://killscreendaily.com/articles/news/best-quotes-nsa-world-warcraft-surveillance-papers/?ref=killscreen.com), which came out in a similar document leak last year. I guess if there is an upside it’s that this speaks to the rising cultural currency of games; they’re a medium not just of artistic expression but of communication, as well. Might as well spy on’em, then.