Microsoft Corp worked closely with U.S. intelligence services to help
them intercept users’ communications, including letting the National Security
Agency circumvent email encryption, the Guardian reported on Thursday.
Citing
top-secret documents provided by former U.S. spy contractor Edward Snowden, the
UK newspaper said Microsoft worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigations
and the NSA to ease access via Prism – an intelligence-gathering program
uncovered by the Guardian last month – to cloud storage service SkyDrive.
Microsoft
also helped the Prism program collect video and audio of conversations
conducted via Skype, Microsoft’s online chat service, the newspaper added.
Microsoft
had previously said it did not provide the NSA direct access to users’
information. On Thursday, it repeated that it provides customer data only in
response to lawful government requests.
“To be
clear, Microsoft does not provide any government with blanket or direct access
to SkyDrive, Outlook.com, Skype or any Microsoft product,” the company said in
a statement on its website.
Facebook
Inc, Google Inc and Microsoft had all publicly urged U.S. authorities to allow
them to reveal the number and scope of the surveillance requests after documents
leaked to the Washington Post and the Guardian suggested they had given the
government “direct access” to their computers as part of the NSA’s Prism
program.
The
disclosures have triggered widespread concern and congressional hearings about
the scope and extent of the information-gathering.
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