A lot is being discussed about government surveillances these days. On a similar tone, Google, Thursday, updated its Transparency Report for the eighth time since 2010. In a rather strident tone, which is obvious, Google announced the details on its official blog.
In the report Google noted that the governments' requests for user information have increased by more than 100% compared to the requests made in 2010. Demands to access user information by United States has also tripled in three years.
Specifically, Google received around 26,000 requests for accessing user data from different governments in the first half of 2013. The number of requests increased significantly in these four years from around 12,500 requests received in 2009 for the same period.
Unsurprisingly, U.S. leads the flock by making maximum requests for data access. Eighty three percent of the total requests made were from the United States alone. Second was India, followed by Germany and France.
The report is significant as it is going to create an impact in the tech industry in terms of user-awareness.
However, Google did not explain about the type or nature of the requests as it is prohibited from doing so by the U.S. government. However, in the blog post, Google hinted towards taking a firm step against government for more transparency.
"We believe it's your right to know what kinds of requests and how many each government is making of us and other companies," wrote Google's Legal Director Richard Salgado in the blog post. "However, the U.S. Department of Justice contends that U.S. law does not allow us to share information about some national security requests that we might receive. Specifically, the U.S. government argues that we cannot share information about the requests we receive (if any) under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But you deserve to know."
