Yahoo denies carrying out mass surveillance of users’ emails for US government amid fierce backlash
Report claims internet firm built a custom program in 2015 which scanned all its emails to help the National Security Agency and the FBI
The report, which said the US internet giant secretly scanned hundreds of millions of email accounts to help American intelligence, was “misleading,” Yahoo said.
“We narrowly interpret every government request for user data to minimise disclosure,” the company said in a statement. “The mail scanning described in the article does not exist on our systems.”
A report on Tuesday by Reuters news agency, citing former employees of the internet firm as sources, said Yahoo had built a custom program in 2015 which scanned all its emails to help the National Security Agency (NSA) and the FBI.
If the report is accurate, it represents a new – and dangerous – expansion of the government’s mass surveillance techniques
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Yahoo had been ordered by a federal judge to search its emails for a digital “signature” in an investigation seeking information about a state-sponsored entity linked to attacks.