British spies can hack into smartphones remotely with a simple text message and make audio recordings or take photographs without owners knowing, former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden said on Monday.
“They want to own your phone instead of you,” the whistle-blower said in an interview on the BBC’s Panorama TV show, referring to Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
Snowden claimed that GCHQ used a series of interception tools called “Smurf Suite,” after the blue cartoon characters, the Smurfs.
“Nosey Smurf” enabled spies to switch on a smartphone’s microphone even if the mobile was off, he said.
Other programs used by GCHQ were nicknamed “Tracker Smurf” and “Dreamy Smurf,” which allows smartphones to be switched on and off remotely, Snowden said.
He said the text message sent by GCHQ to gain access to the smartphone would not be noticed by its owner.
“It’s called an ‘exploit,’” he said.
“When it arrives at your phone, it’s hidden from you. It doesn’t display. You paid for it, but whoever controls the software owns the phone,” he added.
The BBC said the government had declined to comment in line with usual policy on intelligence matters.
Snowden, who has been charged by the US with espionage and theft of government property after leaking documents to the media about digital espionage, has been living in exile in Russia since June 2013.
The British government is planning legislation that would give more powers to intelligence agencies to monitor online activity to investigate crime.
Snowden said he has offered to return to the US and go to jail for leaking details of US National Security Agency (NSA) programs to intercept electronic communications data on a vast scale.
He flew to Moscow two years ago after revealing information about the previously secret eavesdropping powers, and faces US charges that could land him in prison for up to 30 years.
Snowden told the BBC that he’d “volunteered to go to prison with the government many times,” but had not received a formal plea-deal offer.
He said that “so far they’ve said they won’t torture me, which is a start, I think, but we haven’t gotten much further than that.”
Snowden said he and his lawyers were waiting for US officials “to call us back.”
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