Secret 'BADASS' Intelligence Program Spied on Smartphones

British and Canadian spy agencies accumulated sensitive data on smartphone users, including location, app preferences, and unique device identifiers, by piggybacking on ubiquitous software from advertising and analytics companies, according to a document obtained by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The document, included in a trove of Snowden, outlines a secret program run by the intelligence agencies called BADASS. Intelligence agents applied BADASS software filters to streams of intercepted Internet traffic, plucking from that traffic unencrypted uploads from smartphones to servers run by advertising and analytics companies.