News Column  Revealed: spy agencies target phone apps: GCHQ and
NSA able to harvest data through games such as Angry Birds:
Agencies use phone apps to spy on owners  January 28, 2014
James Ball  GCHQ and the US National Security Agency have been
developing capabilities to take advantage of "leaky" smartphone
apps, such as the wildly popular Angry Birds game, which
transmit users' private information across the internet,
according to top secret documents.  The data pouring on to
communication networks from the new generation of iPhone and
Android apps ranges from phone model and screen size to personal
details such as age, gender and location. Some apps, the
documents state, can share users' most sensitive information,
such as sexual orientation - and one app recorded in the
material even sends specific sexual preferences such as whether
the user may be a swinger.  Many smartphone owners will be
unaware of the full extent to which this information is being
shared across the internet, and even the most sophist