Google has reported an increase in the user data requests it receives of 120 per cent over the last four years, which it attributes to an increase in the usage of the company’s services every year.
Google regularly receives requests from governments and courts around the world to hand over user data, disclosing the number of requests it receives from each government every six months, with certain limitations.
“Government requests for user information in criminal cases have increased by about 120 per cent since we first began publishing these numbers in 2009. Though our number of users has grown throughout the time period, we’re also seeing more and more governments start to exercise their authority to make requests,” said Richard Salgado, legal director for law enforcement and information security.
“Today, we’re updating our Transparency Report for the ninth time. This updated report details the number of government requests we received for user information in criminal investigations during the second half of 2013.”
The United States (US) led the way, with 10,574 user data requests about 18,254 accounts between July and December last year, with some data handed over 83 per cent of the time. France, Germany and India came in second, third and fourth with 2,750, 2,660 and 2,513 user data requests respectively.
“We consistently push back against overly broad requests for your personal information, but it’s also important for laws to explicitly protect you from government overreach. That’s why we’re working alongside eight other companies to push for surveillance reform, including more transparency,” said Salgado, referring to the surveillance lobby group set up by Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!, AOL, Microsoft and LinkedIn in a bid to curb snooping by the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) on their data servers and customers.
