Edward Snowden accuses big tech companies including Facebook, Google and Amazon of ‘abusing’ customers by collecting personal data and making them vulnerable to surveillance
- Edward Snowden has criticised internet giants Google and Amazon, Facebook
- He claims business models collect personal data and allow governments access
- Appearing at Web Summit in Lisbon via video link Monday Snowden spoke out
Edward Snowden has criticised internet giants Google, Amazon, and Facebook for the ‘abuse’ of personal data and argues people need to understand the privacy threat against them.
It has been six years since Snowden unveiled the unnerving extent of the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance activities on the public.
Now he believes tech companies are the ones to blame for the misuse of data, claiming they make populations vulnerable by collecting personal data which they then make available to governments in a ‘Faustian bargain’ or ‘deal with the devil’.
Edward Snowden has criticised internet giants Google and Amazon, Facebook for the ‘abuse’ of personal data. Pictured speaking at Web Summit, Lisbon, by video link
Appearing at Web Summit in Lisbon via video link on Monday Snowden said that people were ‘mad at the right people for the wrong reasons’ and questioned the legality of the data collecting practices, reports Cnet.
Snowden said: ‘These people are engaged in abuse, particularly when you look at Google and Amazon, Facebook and their business model.
‘And yet every bit of it, they argue, is legal. Whether we’re talking about Facebook or the NSA, we have legalised the abuse of the person through the personal.’
Speaking at the summit Snowden discredited the introduction of GDPR in the EU calling it a ‘paper tiger’
MailOnline has contacted Facebook, Google and Amazon for comment.
In 2013 Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor decided to turn from obscure U.S. intelligence community wonk to whistleblower
In 2013 Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor decided to turn from obscure U.S. intelligence community wonk to whistleblower – setting off a national debate about the extent of government surveillance by intelligence agencies desperate to avoid a repeat of the September 11 attacks.
Intelligence officials who conduct annual classified assessments of damage from Snowden’s disclosures say the documents will continue trickling out into the public domain for years to come.
Speaking at the summit Snowden discredited the introduction of GDPR in the EU calling it a ‘paper tiger’ as very few fines for misuse of data had been enforced – despite large fines of $57 million issued to Google and $230 million for British Airways, reports Cnet.
Adding: ‘If we learned anything from 2013, it’s that eventually, everything leaks.’
Snowden called for the redesign of the internet’s fundamentals so that people are not asked to trust and disclose so much information to every company they interact with online, he added that ‘we are the only thing that can protect us’.
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Snowden writes in his recent memoir that his seven years working for the NSA and CIA led him to conclude the U.S. intelligence community ‘hacked the Constitution’
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