Guides to collect your data from Apps

We have devised a series of guides in order to help you collect your data from various platforms such as Uber, Facebook, Telegram and WhatsApp. All of these platforms store a lot of information about you in the cloud, which could become accessible to law enforcement agencies.

smartphone apps

Our previous research exposed that law enforcement can use cloud extraction techniques to obtain vast quantities of your data. Cloud analytics software is being used without any transparency and in the absence of clear, accessible and effective legal frameworks. This means law enforcement can circumvent asking companies like Telegram, WhatsApp, Uber and Facebook for your data and avoid getting a warrant. So the use of this technology means there is no limit on what they can obtain, no transparency and no clear, accessible or effective legal safeguards to protect your data from risk of abuse and misuse.

As a result, we wanted to provide you with step by step guides that enable you to find out how much of your data is stored by these apps in the cloud and how you might be able to limit this.

Disclaimer

Taking these steps will not solve everything. Some data will still be collected by the apps and may still be accessible to law enforcement agencies. But these steps can help you to become aware of how much data is stored about you and in some circumstances limit what these apps can collect. These steps are a start – and it’s worth doing.

Glossary

Personal Data

Information that can help identify an individual or can even make an indvidual identifiable.

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This cloud guide enables you to obtain the data stored about you and to limit the amount of data being collected by the Uber app.

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Your Twitter app stores a lot of information about you in the cloud. Here we show you how to gain access to it.

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Your WhatsApp stores a lot of information about you in the cloud. Here we show you how you can gain access to it.

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Your Facebook app stores a lot of information in the cloud. Here we show you how to gain access to it.

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Your Telegram app stores a lot of information about you in the cloud. Here we show you how to gain access to it.