Privacy officials in Luxembourg are investigating Skype over its links to the NSA, The Guardian reported on Friday, and they could force the Microsoft subsidiary to stop passing citizens’ data on to the U.S. intelligence agency.
Quite a few tech firms, Skype included, are headquartered in Luxembourg as part of their tax avoidance strategy. Sadly for them, it turns out that the tiny nation’s data protection authorities may have sharper teeth than those in Ireland, where many U.S. companies site their international operations for similar reasons.
According to the Guardian piece, the Luxembourg authorities began the investigation after Edward Snowden revealed how large web firms were cooperating with the NSA. In July the same newspaper reported that the amount of Skype video call material being collected through the NSA’s Prism scheme tripled when Microsoft bought the company in 2011.
Friday’s article also gave a bit more a glimpse into the type of data we may be talking about here. It quoted an unnamed former Skype engineer as saying the firm had built “listening elements” for the benefit of the Chinese authorities. This feature scans Skype chat messages for certain keywords.
I have tried to approach both Microsoft and Luxembourg data protection chief Gerard Lommel for comment, but haven’t had any luck yet. I will update this piece as and when that situation changes.
via GigaOM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/fvdY2kh_aYU/
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