Spy agencies scour phone apps for personal data - Nation - The Boston Globe

Inadvertently open data

"The NSA and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters were working together on how to collect and store data from dozens of smartphone apps by 2007, according to the documents, provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former NSA contractor.
Since then, the agencies have traded recipes for grabbing location and planning data when a target uses Google Maps and for vacuuming up address books, buddy lists, phone logs, and the geographic data embedded in photos when someone sends a post to the mobile versions of Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other services."

Spy agencies scour phone apps for personal data - Nation - The Boston Globe