Google’s latest Transparency Report is out and shows how user data requests by governments are the highest ever.
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The number of government requests for user information from Google reached new highs in the second half of a year ago, according to the company’s latest transparency report.
Google’s activities in this regard offer a glimpse in to how much user data is requested by governments year after year and also show how much Google cooperates with them.
More than 12,000 requests were made in the United States, affecting 27,157 users or accounts.
So far as the user data requests received between July and December 2015 are concerned, Google has revealed in the report that the requests pertained to 81,311 different Google accounts. India stands among the top four countries with higher governments requests for user data. Furthermore, the number of companies engaging in this practice have only increased in number since 2013, when ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked a cache of top-secret documents that detailed how various world governments were “spying” on their citizens and sharing that information with the NSA.
Reddit agreed to hand over information for 58% of all government and civil requests, and 64% of all U.S. state and federal government requests.
“Google is proud to have led the charge on publishing these reports, helping shed light on government surveillance laws and practices across the world”, said Google legal director Richard Salgado. This shift helps address concerns about the ability of non-U.S. persons to redress grievances concerning data collected and stored by the USA government under US law. Google has set a precedent, prompting other data collectors and tech conglomerates, like Facebook and Twitter, to regularly release similar reports. “However, government nondisclosure obligations regarding the number of FISA national security requests that Google receives, as well as the number of accounts covered by those requests, fuel that speculation”. The percentage of requests worldwide in which Google provided at least some data, however, has remained somewhat steady at around 63 percent for sometime now.
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However, the company points out that as the number of people using Google services around the grows, so too will the number of government requests.
