Warning over social networking 'snooping' technology
Ministers insist the reforms are vital for countering paedophiles, extremists and fraudsters but civil liberties have attacked the Bills scope and branded it a snoopers charter.
A video obtained by the Guardian newspaper reveals how the software system can gather personal information about people including their friends, interests and the places they visit from social networking websites including Foursquare, a mobile phone app that alerts friends of their whereabouts.
In the video, the software analyses the behaviour of a Raytheon employee Nick to show the places he has used his smartphone, the day or time of most internet activity and the location of photos posted online.
"We know where Nick's going, we know what Nick looks like, now we want to try to predict where he may be in the future, says the video.
Ginger McCall, from the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Centre, said the Raytheon, said the technology raised concerns about how personal data could be covertly collected without peoples authorisation.
"Social networking sites are often not transparent about what information is shared and how it is shared," she said.
"Users may be posting information that they believe will be viewed only by their friends, but instead, it is being viewed by government officials or pulled in by data collection services like the Riot search."
The company's US-based spokesmen could not be contacted when approached by the Telegraph on Sunday.
But a spokesman had earlier confirmed that the video was a proof of concept" product that has not been sold to any clients.
"Riot is a big data analytics system design we are working on with industry, national labs and commercial partners to help turn massive amounts of data into useable information to help meet our nation's rapidly changing security needs, he said.
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Warning over social networking 'snooping' technology