Snowden says privacy threat much worse 10 years after disclosures

Edward Snowden has warned that surveillance technology is so much more advanced and intrusive today it makes that used by US and British intelligence agencies he revealed in 2013 look like child's play.

- Ewen MacAskill

In an interview on the 10th anniversary of his revelations about the scale of surveillance - some of it illegal by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and its British counterpart, GCHQ, he said he had no regrets about what he had done and cited positive changes.

But he is depressed about inroads into privacy in the physical and digital world. "Technology has grown to be enormously influential," Snowden said. "If we think about what we saw in 2013 and the capabilities of governments today, 2013 seems like child's play."

He expressed concern not only about dangers posed by governments and Big Tech but commercially available video surveillance cameras, facial recognition, artificial intelligence and intrusive spyware such as Pegasus used against dissidents and journalists.

Looking back to 2013, he said: "We trusted the government not to screw us. But they did. We trusted the tech companies not to take advantage of us. But they did. That is going to happen again, because that is the nature of power."