Brazil to shield official e-mails from snooping

Brazil plans to set up an encrypted national e-mail service to shield government communications from unwanted surveillance, an official said.

"Using Expresso V3 in the communications system will completely rid the government of all espionage. The technology will be implemented in November," Marcos Mazoni, head of the Federal Data Processing System, said Monday.

The new homegrown security technology will host all traffic on its servers and use only state-owned cable networks, with no participation of foreign companies or networks, Xinhua reported.

"We need more security for our messages to prevent possible espionage. This was the first step toward extending privacy and inviolability of official posts," Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said on Twitter.

This move came after documents leaked by Edward Snowden, former US National Security Agency contractor, showed that the US and Canadian governments had spied on Brazilian officials and companies.

Spy targets included the Brazilian president's official communications, the mines and energy ministry and state oil and gas giant Petrobras.