British Surveillance Agency Looked Into Kinect Data Collection

The Guardian has published a feature on data collection by British spy agency GCHQ. The report alleges that the GCHQ investigated the possibilities of collecting data from the Kinect.

The same report reveals the agency already collected data from Yahoo webcam chats without Yahoo’s knowledge.

The report covered GCHQ’s activities under a program codenamed Optic Nerve, and covered the years 2008 to 2010. Of course, this all implies that spy agencies very well had the capability to collect Kinect data without Microsoft’s knowledge, and could be doing it now on both Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, GCHQ referred to their policy on not commenting on stories. Even if Microsoft denies giving data to governments willingly, it would seem that their compliance was not even necessary.