In what could only be described as a privacy rights nightmare, a report from the Washington Post on Friday uncovered an until-now secret program carried out by the FBI and National Security Agency called “PRISM.”

Using the platform, authorities reportedly tapped into the central servers of nine large internet companies, accessing data such as photographs, video chats, audio, e-mails, logs and more.

While authorities tapping into data is not uncommon, the initiative could be a drastic departure as it directly snatches data from data center servers.

Service provider data was said to be extracted from the likes of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, PalTalk, Skype, AOL, Apple and YouTube.

The Washington Post learned of the program by obtaining a document.

A number of companies, however, have denied having knowledge of PRISM.

“We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers,” commented Facebook chief security officer Joe Sullivan in the Washington Post report. Sullivan continued, “When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinize any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law.”

Meanwhile, a similar defense was offered by Apple.