Canadian intelligence services are conducting massive surveillance of the Internet, according to a report leaked by American defector Edward Snowden.

According to the report, Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE) captures and analyzes up to 15 million data files daily as part of a global surveillance system known as Levitation.

Through this system, Canada carries out massive surveillance of Internet traffic to and from countries including the United States, Britain, Brazil, Germany, Spain and Portugal, according to the report. Radio-Canada News and the online newspaper The interception had access to.

Protests in Brazil

Brazilian authorities, who harshly criticized the United States in 2013 after Snowden’s revelation that the Americans had wiretapped President Dilma Rousseff, are reacting sharply to the activities of Canadian intelligence services.

– Brazil renounces all unauthorized espionage against foreign officials, indicates a press release from the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The CSE is the equivalent of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and monitors all forms of data and telecommunications. The intelligence agency does not have the ability to spy on Canadian citizens or businesses.

Cooperation with the United States

In 1941, Canada entered into formal intelligence cooperation with the United States, and in 1948 it also joined the so-called UKUSA agreement on intelligence cooperation, in which Great Britain also participates, Australia and New Zealand.

Through this agreement, Canada committed to conducting signals intelligence (Sigint) activities on behalf of the United States.

Additionally, over the years, CSE has carried out communications intelligence (Comint) and electronic intelligence (Elint) activities, one of its tasks being wiretapping foreign embassies in Ottawa.

The CST is also believed to have played an important role in NATO’s maritime surveillance systems.