NSA and GCHQ spied on Xbox Live and World of Warcraft gamers to counter terrorism

THE world of online gaming has been targeted by British and United States intelligence agencies, according to the latest documents revealed by former NSA employee Edward Snowden.

Innocent gamers were monitored without even knowing it Innocent gamers were monitored without even knowing it [GETTY]

Real life-agents are said to have been dropped into the virtual realms of top online computer games around the world to monitor the threat of online terrorism, despite there being little evidence to support the operation.

In files published by the Guardian, the American National Security Agency and British counterpart GCHQ, are reported to have infiltrated games in order to prevent the threat of terrorists recruiting potential informants.

A NSA briefing note from 2008, labelled Exploiting Terorrist Use of Games & Virtual Environments, read the online word was described as a "target-rich communications network".

However, according to the newspaper and documents, there is little evidence to show such a threat and therefore raises concerns about the privacy of innocent gamers.

It is understood agents were deployed into Xbox Live servers, popular PC games World of Warcraft and Second Life.

Yet, World of Warcraft developers Blizzard Entertainment said they were unaware of any monitoring.

"We are unaware of any surveillance taking place," said a spokesman for Blizzard Entertainment.

"If it was, it would have been done without our knowledge or permission."

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The GCHQ requested the NSA to gather metadata from World of Warcraft servers to link "accounts, characters and guilds" to Islamic extremism.

At one stage, Second Life was described as a "certainty" to be used for "terrorist propaganda and recruitment".

The NSA documents showed by 2008 that there had been one successful operation.

They helped shut down a website dealing stolen credit card details.

The document says Al Qaida have been associated with the likes of World of Warcraft and Second Life.

It reads: "Other targets include Chinese hackers, an Iranian nuclear scientist, Hizballah, and Hamas members."

GCHQ did not “confirm or deny” the gaming claims . The NSA declined to comment.

Earlier this week, the likes of Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, Microsoft and LinkedIn have asked for an online security reform from the US Government.

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