By now the whole world should know of the NSA’s PRISM program that was leaked by former employee, Edward Snowden, who is now on the run and seeking asylum in one of 21 countries. Now new information has leaked claiming the French intelligence service captures web and phone data on an enormous scale.

The information came courtesy of the French newspaper Le Monde, which also claims that data collected is kept on a supercomputer at the head office of the DGSE intelligence service. The paper went on to state how the data is secretly accessed by other French intelligence agencies, though it is not known for what purpose.

What is not certain at this moment, is if the DGSE reconnaissance went as far as PRISM, since the scale of the operation, which was designed to uncover terrorist cells, could also have been used to spy on regular French nationalists. Furthermore, we understand the DGSE only analyze the data and not the contents of emails and other communications, however, there is no proof to suggest otherwise.

France getting caught in a similar spying scandal to the U.S. is a bit ironic, as the country has sharply criticized the US spying, which allegedly included eavesdropping on official EU communications. In addition, it is understood that connections from within France and other countries are monitored regularly according to the daily Le Monde.

Since these allegations are not yet proven to be true or not, it is likely France will not face the same scrutiny as the U.S. and its PRISM program. So far, French officials have failed to comment on Le Monde’s claims, so the full story might take some time to come into the light.

At the end of the day, we hope these allegations are not true, as no citizen deserves to be spied on by their own government. Knowing the people of France, if these allegations turn out to be legitimate, a full on riot could take place, and that’s never a good thing. (No racism intended.)

[via BBC, image via PressTV]