Angry Birds, for those few who don’t know, is a popular video game. It’s very popular – given that it’s been downloaded close to 2 billion times and is played by some 200 million users a month.

It’s also a smartphone app. Why that’s especially important is info on users may have been collected via the app by top spy agencies such as the U.S. National Security Agency (News - Alert) (NSA) and the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

It was explained in recent news reports how spy agencies apparently can intercept third-party ad profiles, which are sorted for information and the content then compared to agency lists. These revelations come from documents released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Meanwhile, Rovio Entertainment, which sells Angry Birds, told The New York Times it was not aware of the intelligence gathering efforts. "Nor do we have any involvement with the organizations," the company added in the statement. "Rovio doesn't have any previous knowledge of this matter, and have not been aware of such activity in 3rd party advertising networks," Saara Bergström, Rovio's vice president of marketing and communications, said in a statement.

It was reported, too, that the spy agencies apparently used the information from Angry Birds to investigate potential terrorists. U.S. and U.K. intelligence agencies have also used Xbox Live, World of Warcraft, and Second Life – to find information related to terrorists, according to GameSpot. In addition, the popular Google (News - Alert) Maps offering may have been used by the spy agencies to gather personal information. “Anyone using Google Maps on a smartphone is working in support of a GCHQ system," a 2008 GCHQ document said.

To understand how revealing the information can be, it was reported the apps can provide spy agencies with someone’s location information, political affiliation, age and sexual orientation, according to The Associated Press.

The NSA meanwhile denied suggestions it was sorting through information on average Americans. "Any implication that NSA's foreign intelligence collection is focused on the smartphone or social media communications of everyday Americans is not true," a NSA statement quoted by The Associated Press said. "We collect only those communications that we are authorized by law to collect for valid foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes — regardless of the technical means used by the targets." Similarly, GCHQ said its efforts were "authorized, necessary and proportionate."

But the technology allows for widespread surveillance. “Scooping up information the apps are sending about their users allows the agencies to collect large quantities of mobile phone data from their existing mass surveillance tools – such as cable taps, or from international mobile networks – rather than solely from hacking into individual mobile handsets,” according to a report from The Guardian.

Last month, it was reported how the NSA was believed to be using web-tracking cookies to collect information. But more personal data can be found using apps, geo-location, and identifying handset information. In another recent report, NBC News said GCHQ was monitoring YouTube (News - Alert) and social media traffic by cable-tapping methods.

President Barack Obama is trying to put in place more safeguards on the NSA's controversial phone data collection program – but many European leaders remain skeptical of his initiative. Angry Birds is an app, however, and it's not clear if Obama's efforts would extend to such games or Google Maps.