Google: US demand for user data up 250 percent over 5 years

U.S. government demands for information from Google have risen by 250 percent over the last five years.

The number of requests about users’ communications has risen steadily over that time period, the company explained in a report issued on Monday, even as more details of the surveillance programs have come to light.

{mosads}In the first half of this year, the Web giant received more than 31,000 requests for data from governments around the globe, covering about 48,000 users’ accounts. Not counting some letters from the FBI or other intelligence agencies — which come with special rules about how they can be disclosed — that amounted to a 15 percent jump over the previous six months.

The U.S. is far and away the most active government, with more than 12,000 information requests in the first half of this year. Germany, France and India were among the countries that also demanded a significant amount of records.  

According to Google, it produced data in response to just 65 percent of those demands. 

Despite leaks from Edward Snowden and other sources of information about global spying, “we have seen some countries expand their surveillance authorities in an attempt to reach service providers outside their borders,” Google’s law enforcement and information security director Richard Salgado wrote in a blog post.

“To maintain public confidence in both government and technology, we need legislative reform that ensures surveillance powers are transparent, reasonably scoped by law, and subject to independent oversight,” he added.

In particular, Google has supported the USA Freedom Act, a bill from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that has attracted bipartisan support. It would allow tech companies to disclose additional details about the information they need to hand over to the government, as well as end the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records. 

Salgado also advocated for a bill to grant new legal protections to people’s emails, which would prohibit government officials from searching them without a warrant.