While heads of state have encrypted mobiles and other secure lines for work, many can’t resist using regular smartphones for everyday life - making them susceptible to espionage.
On Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called US President Obama demanding answers after reports Washington may have hacked her cellphone.
The White House, refused to say whether Washington’s agents had intercepted her communications in the past, and Obama was forced to promise they would not do so in the future.
Amid growing outrage in Europe, the scandal spotlights how high-ranking officials use technology and, possibly, how reaching for a personal iPhone or BlackBerry can expose their Achilles’ heel.
The Der Tagesspiegel daily, citing anonymous government sources, said Merkel’s allegedly tapped cellphone wasn’t the encrypted one she uses in her official role as chancellor.
Rather, it claimed, it was the one she has as head of the country’s CDU political party.
Some German reports, however, claimed the gadget was the leader’s “official” mobile, which is supposed to be highly secure.
In France, high-ranking officials have encrypted Teorem cellphones exclusively built for the state by defence contractor Thales and which are believed to cost some 3,300 euros a piece.
Approved by the ANSSI national security agency, they even allow the secure transfer of material deemed “top secret.”
Some officials also have access to a highly secure intranet and an inter-ministerial landline phone and fax network.
However, these systems are often seen as restrictive and slow by their users.
On a Teorem phone, for example, it takes up to 30 seconds to place a call due to security codes - and that can frustrate officials in an era of increasingly fast communications.
Hands off Gmail and Google. In an August 19 memo - after leaks by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden started revealing the extent of American spying in Europe - the French prime minister’s office reminded ministries about the importance of securing data.
Among other things, the memo specified that “the use of unapproved commercial smartphones must exclude the communication of sensitive information.”
People who own encrypted cellphones, be they politicians, company heads, lawyers or even journalists, “have at least one iPhone or BlackBerry” on top of it, Robert Avril, founder of the firm Cryptofrance, said.
Despite all the training sessions these individuals receive, once back home such individuals tell themselves that hacking only happens to others, he said.
“We keep telling our clients not to have work-related conversations or send e-mails from their regular smartphones.”
While it may be the case that this is business as usual on the spying front, the latest revelations raise the question of whether dragnet surveillance of everyone and everything is more trouble than it’s worth.
Though it’s only the spying on American citizens, foreigners deserve privacy unless there is a good reason to spy on them. It was wrong when George Bush did it and it’s wrong when President Obama does it. And just what possible benefit there could be for spying on the top leadership of America’s closest allies?
But that’s always been the case, and you’re a naive person if you think foreign diplomats or presidents should deserve or expect privacy.
