Google enhances encryption technology for email

Washington: Google has enhanced the encryption technology for its flagship email service. This new technology will make it harder for the National Security Agency to intercept messages moving among the company's worldwide data centres.

This change can benefit more than 425 million users of Google's Gmail service. Yahoo has promised similar steps for its email service by this spring. According to the official documents of the NSA systems, it was observed that the NSA had secretly tapped into the main communications links of Yahoo and Google data centers around the world.

Nicolas Lidzborski, Gmail's security engineering lead, said that all emails sent and received by a consumer, are now encrypted. "This ensures that your messages are safe not only when they move between you and Gmail's servers, but also as they move between Google's data centres - something we made a top priority after last summer's revelations," highlighted Lidzborski wrote. Google and other technology companies provide information to the NSA and other government agencies, only when required by a court order.

"Google is making it tougher for the government to spy on its customers without going through Google," concluded Chris Soghoian, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union.