MOSCOW – Private companies’ access to personal information on users’ smartphones reduces the level of security in the world, former U.S. National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden said.
“It [the phone] knows the location where you are at any given time, even if you turn the location services off, as long as you’re connected to the phone network. Wherever you go, your phone goes […] These are intensely private, intensely personal things. And the thing is our phones have become such a necessary part of our lives, for everyone, not just communications. […] The phone is really an extension of the self, it’s a part of you,” Snowden said in an interview with Russia’s Znanie (Knowledge) society.
“And now there are private companies that have no business besides creating ways to hack into these phones. And then they sell these hacking methods to governments around the world, including some very bad governments,” he said.
“It’s like there is a business in finding ways to corrupt people’s bodies,” Snowden said.
“We need to have devices that are more secure, not less secure. The idea that we are creating an industry that develops insecurity, anti-security, as opposed to improving security, is very problematic,” he said.
