Technologies biggest companies are now in an 'arms race' with government surveillance agencies, according to Google, which is now encrypting its own data to ward off prying eyes.
For the past year Google has been working to encrypt the information flowing between its data centres, but the operation was stepped up significantly following the Edward Snowden revelations in June.
The company's reputation took a battering over the perception it had willingly complied with the PRISM initiative, which has harvested the personal communications of citizens on a massive scale, according to the now-infamous whistleblower.
Google denies willing participating in any such scheme and is now beefing up its own internal security to keep out unwanted intrusion.
Counter measures
Google's vice president for security engineering Eric Grosse told the Washington Post: "It's an arms race. We see these government agencies as among the most skilled players in this game."
The encryption efforts will make it much harder for the government agencies to decode any information they intercept, with Google confident it's counter measures will prove successful.
Grosse added: "This is a just a point of personal honour. It will not happen here."
The data encryption will not have any effect on Google's obligation to comply with reasonable security requests from the NSA or other government agencies.
Via The Verge
