The sneaky ways that governments get your private data

I spend a lot of my time thinking about the ways that governments try to screw us over with our own information. This is because for many, if not most, governments represent the ultimate threat to life and liberty, and governments regularly weaponize our data against us.

I think about the people under regimes who risk persecution, prosecution, imprisonment, or worse, simply for being who they are or what they do. I also think about the fortunate many who live in democracies and feel comfortable in their country's legal protections today, but might not have thought about what happens if those protections change or disappear in the future.

During my career as a journalist, I have tracked the rise and scale of government surveillance, and also documented the ways that tech giants, the cybersecurity community, and the wider public have pushed back. I believe it's critically important to help people understand the common threats that they face, including from their own governments. By knowing the threats, we can all take individual precautions to help protect ourselves from future intrusions.

Governments are powerful, and have legal powers that you and I generally don't have, such as permitting the surveillance of others and demanding information about people from companies. Governments already do this regularly, while also finding new and inventive ways to get the data they seek. Under the Trump administration and amid rising authoritarianism in parts of the world, privacy intrusions are becoming more commonplace among regular people, who now need to take special security measures simply for exercising their rights to free speech, expression, and the documenting of abuses. 

Making sure that personal data can't be grabbed in the first place should now be a top priority for at-risk people. 

In this deep-dive article, we will explore at least five of the most common ways that governments, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies obtain your information, and some of the ways you can prevent that information from ending up in their hands. By knowing how governments get your data, you can take proactive steps to limit what information of yours they can access. Even if you accept a certain level of surveillance today, administrations and laws can change overnight, and what was deemed safe one day can put you at risk the next.

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