Govt pressure: Requests for user data doubled, says Google

In its ‘transparency report’ covering first 6 months of 2013, tech giant said largest number of requests came from US.

WASHINGTON: Google said on Thursday the number of requests for user data from governments and law enforcement has doubled since 2010. In its updated ‘transparency report’ covering the first six months of 2013, the tech giant said the largest number of requests -- 10,918 -- came from the US. That accounted for more than a third of the 25,879 requests Google received worldwide. The California Internet company renewed its argument for the ability to reveal more about US national security requests, disclosures of which must be lumped in with law enforcement inquiries. “We believe it’s your right to know what kinds of requests and how many each government is making of us and other companies,” Google’s legal director said in a blog posting.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 15^th, 2013.