Privacy International demands Amazon, Google and other cloud companies reveal use of 'cloud extraction' technology

Secret ‘cloud extraction' is taking "huge amounts" of personal data from consumer cloud applications at the behest of law enforcement agencies around the world without the knowledge of users.

Furthermore, people are increasingly being tracked via their cloud activities, often legally, via apps such as WhatsApp, Dropbox, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and Slack.

That's according to online privacy pressure group Privacy International, which has written to 17 of the biggest cloud computing companies to demand they reveal their use of cloud analytics technologies by law enforcement agencies to obtain cloud stored data.

Privacy International cites Oxygen Forensics, which claims that a whole range of information can be extracted from cloud computing services by different extraction services - including its own - information that users may not even be aware is being stored and identified with them.

"The valuable data extracted can contain a wealth of information, including account and device details, contracts, user activity, incoming and outgoing messages, calendars, notifications, user created lists, created/installed skills, preferences and more.

"One amazing feature in the software is the ability to extract the stored voice commands given to Alexa by the user… The information extracted from Amazon will undoubtedly give tremendous insights into the user's everyday activity," Oxygen Forensics warns.

Part of the problem, claimed Camilla Graham Wood, solicitor at Privacy International, is that little is know, not just about how much data is now routinely exported to the cloud, but the use of cloud extraction technologies.

"Cloud extraction technologies give law enforcement the ability to access eye-watering amounts of highly sensitive personal data, not only about individuals, but also their friends, colleagues and acquaintances.

"Concerningly, such technology also allows authorities to deploy facial recognition tech across people's media as well as the ability to conduct continual monitoring of an individual's social media without them ever knowing," said Graham Wood.

She continued: "Much of this data is uploaded to the cloud, often without our knowledge, by the big tech companies... There is an urgent need for the companies who we entrust with our data to ensure they protect it from the technology that can be operated by unskilled operatives at the push of a button.

"It is a matter of urgency that law enforcement act with a greater degree of transparency in relation to the new forms of surveillance they are using, and that laws which are designed to protect against abuses are updated."