Blogger Anna Roth has accused German police of monitoring Skype, Facebook chat and Google Mail, following an examination of expenditures by the country’s Ministry of Home Affairs.

In the wake of last year’s notorious discovery that police were using a Trojan to spy on criminal suspects – legal in limited cases, but according to the Chaos Computer Club, the code went far beyond its remit – the Bundestag released a parliamentary report, now translated into English (PDF), which gives rise to the new accusations.

DigiTask was also kept busy supplying and installing “capture units” (presumably surveillance appliances), often on a rental basis.

The contracts went to DigiTask, the company accused of developing the Trojan analysed last year by Chaos – the code of which was described as “amateurishly written” at the time. CCC’s analysis of the Trojan found that it installed backdoors and keyloggers on target machines.

Other gems include the supply of “clandestine radio equipment” by Phonak, Davis micro-cameras, and forensic software supplied by X-Ways Software.

Roth's blog post is at Annalist, here. ®

Related stories

• Cyber-cop Trojan used iTunes flaw to spy on crims (22 November 2011)
• German states defend use of 'Federal Trojan' (12 October 2011)
• German hackers snare wiretap Trojan, accuse gov of writing it... (10 October 2011)
• Whistleblower releases Skype snooping code (28 August 2009)
• German cyberplods raid Pirate Party on Skype Trojan mole hunt (18 September 2008)
• Austrian official fuels Skype backdoor rumours (25 July 2008)
• Bavaria sanctions police spyware (7 July 2008)
• Skype Trojan wiretap plan leaks onto the net (29 January 2008)