Canada snooped-on airport travellers, Edward Snowden documents reveal

Fanning the already heated debate over privacy of citizens, the latest claim to emerge from the NSA leaks reportedly states that the Canadian intelligence allegedly snooped on airport travellers via Wi-Fi hubs.

The documents revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden pointed that Canada's electronic spy agency, Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) collected data from travellers passing through a major airport.

According to the BBC, the documents have claimed that the CSEC collected the information from the airport's free Wi-Fi system over two weeks, as a trial run in 2012 of a of a powerful new software programme being developed jointly with the US's spy agency, NSA. The CSEC is prohibited by law from targeting Canadians or anyone in Canada without an appropriate warrant, however, the agency said that it was mandated to collect foreign signals to protect the country and is citizens.

Meanwhile, experts have revealed that the information captured from travellers' devices would have enabled the agency to track them for a week or more as they showed up in other Wi-Fi hot spots around Canada, such as other airports, hotels or restaurants.

The report said that two airports, Vancouver and Toronto, and an independent supplier of Wi-Fi services at other Canadian airports, Boingo, have denied any involvement in supplying Wi-Fi information.