Activists Want To Know What Access Governments Have to Skype Data

Is the service's owner, Microsoft, cooperating with snoops?

Microsoft needs to open up about the trustworthiness of its Skype software for confidential conversations, according to an open letter to the company posted today.

The open letter, from an array of privacy advocates, Internet activists, journalists, and others, calls on Microsoft to provide public documentation about the security and privacy practices around Skype, which facilitates video and voice communications over the Internet. Microsoft completed its $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype in October 2011.

The authors of the letter say they're worried in particular about the access that governments have to both Skype conversations themselves and to the user data generated by those communications. Among the groups that have signed the letter are the Electronic Freedom Foundation, Reporters Without Borders, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, and the Tibet Action Institute.