Former federal Privacy Commissioner Malcolm Crompton has blasted Australia’s major political parties as “incredibly secretive” about the information they gather on voters and suggested their exemption from privacy laws is indefensible.

His comments come after Fairfax Media revelations that Facebook approached the major parties before the 2016 election, offering a new and powerful data-matching tool, and that Labor used the technology.

Scrutiny of the use of personal information by data analytics has intensified following claims Cambridge Analytica improperly harvested Facebook data to target American voters.

There are claims Cambridge Analytica improperly harvested Facebook data to target voters ahead of the 2016 US election.

Investigators from Britain's data watchdog on Friday searched Cambridge Analytica’s London offices after a whistleblower alleged the firm gathered private information of 50 million Facebook users to support Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.