Big Tech companies like Apple, Google, and Meta are letting the US government see more of your personal data than ever before, a chilling new report revealed.

According to Swiss-based company Proton, these digital giants handed over the personal online data of 3.16 million accounts in just the last decade, from 2014 to 2024.

The report claimed that US intelligence agencies and law enforcement's use of Big Tech to collect personal information for investigations has skyrocketed in recent years - and the numbers back that up.

Apple has increased their sharing with the government by a staggering 621 percent since 2014. Meta went even further, increasing their data sharing by 675 percent.

The number of accounts Google shared with the government jumped by 530 percent, but none of those figures even includes data requests made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) - which are mostly kept secret.

As for what Apple, Google, and Meta are handing over to the government, data-sharing agreements with banks, health apps, and countless websites give Big Tech permission to reveal almost everything you do online.

For those who fear they may have already had their data shared with the government unknowingly, you can file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the agencies you suspect of spying on you - for example, the FBI.

Proton's Richie Koch said, 'These companies monitor your entire digital life, compiling a detailed profile that can be handed over at the government's request or shared with a third party. Essentially, once one of these companies collects your information, you've completely lost control of who can see it.'

Even more alarming, researchers explain that because Big Tech collects as much personal data as possible in order to generate revenue from ads, there's little they can do to protect your privacy. 

Proton's report added that the US government has figured out this loophole in Big Tech's business model and now uses it to their advantage. 

From July 2023 through June 2024, US officials made nearly 500,000 data requests to Google and Meta.

That's more than the combined total of all the other members of the so-called '14 Eyes Alliance' - an international coalition that have agreed to share intelligence with each other.

This alliance includes Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia, Italy, and Canada - but not a single country even approached 200,000 requests during that time - aside from America.

Big Tech's privacy flaw revolves around the fact companies like Apple and Google can't adopt end-to-end encryption - a secure communication system where only the user and their recipient can access data.

Third parties, including system providers, telecom providers, internet providers, and hackers, are all locked out of the user's messages.

However, this system would cripple Big Tech's money-making ability, as companies like Meta and Alphabet (the parent company of Google) use data collection to generate nearly all of their revenue - by sending you ads your data suggests you would like.

'To protect their users' privacy, these companies would have to fundamentally change how they make money, which is not something they have ever shown any appetite for,' Koch explained.

The sheer amount of data these companies can share with governments may be terrifying to most people.

In 2024, journalist Matilda Davies from The Times of London requested her data from Meta as an experiment to see just how much information Big Tech gathers on everyday people.

Davies requested that the social media giant reveal everything they had on her for the last 15 years. They sent her 20,000 pages.

The reporter said that Meta had details on 'every party invitation, holiday snap and regrettable Facebook status update, plus almost 20,000 interactions over two years with websites and apps that aren't connected to my Meta accounts.'

For Americans, there is little anyone can do to stop their data from ending up in the government's hands.

The Proton report noted that FISA allows US intelligence agencies - like the FBI and CIA - to request user data for 'national security purposes.'

Moreover, these requests reportedly receive little oversight and Big Tech cannot legally refuse them.

Some of these FISA requests don't even need a judge to sign off on them, thanks to a 2008 loophole which allows federal agencies to present batches of cases (Section 702 requests) as one giant investigation.

Simply put, federal agents don't have to speak with a judge and argue the merits of gathering your personal data if you're lumped in with countless other Section 702 requests.

Until companies like Apple, Google, and Meta change how they make money, Koch warns that governments are free to continue collecting your data without much protest from Big Tech.

'They'll continue monitoring you, collecting tens of thousands of pages of your information each year. And governments will continue to help themselves to this information,' Koch said.