Edward Snowden
THE UK's intelligence agency GCHQ has the power to hack into phones without their owners' knowledge, whistleblower Edward Snowden has said.
The former US intelligence contractor said smartphone users can do "very little" to stop security services getting "total control" over their devices.
Mr Snowden, the current rector of Glasgow University, told the BBC's Panorama that GCHQ could gain access to a handset by sending it an encrypted text message and use it for such things as taking pictures and listening in.
He told Panorama about GCHQ's "Smurf Suite", a collection of secret intercept capabilities individually named after the little blue imps of Belgian cartoon fame.
13The UK government declined to comment.
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