Google today admitted that it had received – and complied with – a record number of requests from governments to reveal information about its users. The latest edition of the search giant’s Transparency Report shows governments around the world made nearly 21,000 requests to access its data in the first six months of 2012. The [...]

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‘Government surveillance is on the rise’ says Google

By Damien Gayle
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Google today admitted that it had received – and complied with – a record number of requests from governments to reveal information about its users.

The latest edition of the search giant’s Transparency Report shows governments around the world made nearly 21,000 requests to access its data in the first six months of 2012.

The U.S. government made the most demands, asking for users’ details 7,969 times between January and June this year. The UK came sixth – behind Germany and France – with 1,425 requests.

‘This is the sixth time we’ve released this data, and one trend has become clear: Government surveillance is on the rise,’ Dorothy Chou, a senior policy analyst for Google, said in a blog post.

‘In the first half of 2012, there were 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 34,614 accounts.’

In common with other technology and communications firms, Google is regularly asked by courts and government agencies around the world to hand over information about its users.

As well as search histories, it holds data on users’ contacts and communications through Gmail, viewing preferences on YouTube, photos on Picasa, documents stored on Google Drive, and information about authors’ identities on Blogger.

The company has published its Transparency Report twice a year since 2009 and each time has revealed a steady rise in government demands for data. In its first report it revealed 12,539 requests.

Google does not always comply with demands to reveal user data, and its report also revealed what percentage of requests were accepted.

Unsurprisingly, the U.S. again topped this list, with Google complying with 90 per cent of requests from agencies in its home jurisdiction. The company was notably less cooperative with UK authorities, accepting 64 per cent of requests.

Google also revealed a spike in the number of requests by governments to remove content from its services, after this figure remained largely flat from 2009 to 2011.

In the first half of 2012, there were 1,791 requests from government officials around the world to remove 17,746 pieces of content from Google-run services, up from 1,048 requests in the second half of 2011.
Google revealed the number of requests by UK authorities in particular had nearly doubled since its previous report, with many relating to criticism of the police.

The most frequent reason authorities worldwide offered in requests to take down content was that it was defamatory, with privacy and security coming in second, and the catch-all ‘other’ coming in third.
A spokesman for the company told the BBC that the Transparency Report acts as a bellwether for government behaviour around the world.

‘It reflects laws on the ground. For example in Turkey there are specific laws about defaming public figures whereas in Germany we get requests to remove neo-Nazi content,’ she told the broadcaster.

‘And in Brazil we get a lot of requests to remove content during elections because there is a law banning parodies of candidates.’

© Daily Mail, London




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