Report: UK agency intercepted webcam chats

Yahoo is slamming as "completely unacceptable"a British agency's alleged collection of digital images while eavesdropping on webcam chats, aspokesperson for the Internet search engine said Thursday.And Yahoo says if the electronic spying took place, the online mainstay had nothing to do withit."We are not aware nor would we condone this reported activity," the spokesperson said following a published report by the UK-based Guardian newspaper that Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, known as GCHQ,spied on people using Yahoo webcam chats, whether or not those users were investigative targets.According to the Guardian report, which cites documents leaked by former National Security Agency intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, the GCHQ collected the images under a program known as "Optic Nerve."The documents show, according to the Guardian,that the GCHQ -- with reported aid from the U.S. National Security Agency -- intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of Internet users.If the report is true, it is "completely unacceptable," the Yahoo spokesperson said.The mass collection of digital images of Yahoo users began because GCHQ targets were known to use the search engine's webcam, the documents said, according to the Guardian.During a six-month stretch in 2008, the GCHQ allegedly collected images from webcam chats from 1.8 million Yahoo users globally, the newspaper reported.The still images were allegedly collected at five`-minute intervals during the chats. One document,according to the Guardian, compared the collection of digital images to that of a massive digital police mugshot book.GCHQ declined to speak to the allegations, citing a longstanding policy that it does not comment on intelligence matters.