"Report: New Zealand company helps UK spy agency tap internet cables", 25 Oct 2016

A company headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand has played an integral role in global mass surveillance, according to a new report. Based on documents and emails leaked to The Intercept, Endace has quietly been selling its technology to government agencies, allowing them to gather vast quantities of "private emails, online chats, social media conversations, and internet browsing histories." [T]he company [is] producing technology that can help clients intercept and monitor online traffic. It boasts "100 percent accurate capture and storage of network traffic...According to a leaked client list, customers apparently include government agencies in Australia, Canada and Israel, [and] the Moroccan spy agency, which has been implicated in serious human rights abuses. One important customer...is UK spy agency, [the] GCHQ...The records of Endace sales are confirmed by internal GCHQ documents, provided by Snowden, which describe the company's data capture devices being used as part of mass surveillance programs... Documents...repeatedly mention the Endace products while discussing the capture of "internet-derived" data to extract information about people's usage of services such as Gmail, Hotmail, WhatsApp, and Facebook.