Is that the law in the country where Blockstream is incorporated in? Are requests from authorities to incorporate spying features into a company's product legally enforceable?
Even if they are, it's harder to keep a secret when more people get to know of it.
I did not find information on where the company is headquartered, but of the 4 main offices, two are located in Canada, 1 in the US and one in the EU (Victoria, Montreal, Mountain View, and Milan).
Their
privacy policy is pretty standard and says, among other things :
If you are a non-U.S. user of the Sites, by visiting the Sites and providing us with data, you acknowledge and agree that your Personal Information may be processed for the purposes identified in the Privacy Policy. In addition, your Personal Information may be processed in the country in which it was collected and in other countries, including the United States, where laws regarding processing of Personal Information may be less stringent than the laws in your country. By providing your data, you consent to such transfer... Additionally, we may use third-party analytics services to collect and analyze data automatically collected from site users; the type and nature of those services may change without notice. Data collected this way is governed by the terms and conditions of those third party services.
Personal information we gather is for internal use only. We will not authorize the release of this information to anyone outside Blockstream, except: when we believe it is necessary to comply with the law.
In other words, if the authorities ask for something, it is very likely that they will get it. It is not at all clear to me why someone still believes that companies like this can do business without cooperating with the authorities? Information is the most valuable commodity, and to spy on someone you don't need their consent - you just need to make sure the equipment they use has some kind of little chip that does the dirty work. Well the Chinese have been spying on the US and the whole world for the past 20 years like that, and no one had a clue about it.
