Google says government requests increased by 10 percent; India may continue to show an upward trend

Tech companies have been trying to be ‘clear’ about user data requests they have been receiving, even from the government. Google has been giving us timely updates, and so have others. Now, the search giant is out with its latest Transparency Report, which isn’t surprising at all. The number of govt data requests made to Google have jumped to 44,943, which led to 10 percent spike from the previous six-month period. It is also the fourth consecutive increase, and we may not be surprised if it continues to increase. In terms of countries, US sits on top of the list with a whopping 14,168 requests made for 30,123 accounts/users, and it is followed by Germany and France with 8,788 and 4,300 data requests, respectively. In the fourth place is India with 3452 requests, followed by the UK, Singapore and Australia. However, UK showed a higher percentage in terms of requests granted compared to India.  In India, the numbers have seen a slight jump, from 3,265 in the last report to 3452 data requests made in the said period. It also impacted more number of accounts at 6,207. These numbers seem to be be following an upward trajectory compared to the first half of the year when 3,087 data requests were made. Though there was a slight drop in the first half of 2015 compared to the period ended 2014, the second half saw the highest six monthly number we’d seen back then. For 49 percent of requests made in the last six months of 2015, data was produced. And, looks like India continues to stand among the top four countries with higher government’s requests for user data with each passing year. However, Google doesn’t really reveal information about the accounts or users, and neither does it break down to show the type of requests made. The report more or less looks like what we’ve seeing all the time. Google is also able to report about the number of National Security Letters it received in Q2 2015 The report says that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requests increased in the same period to 21,000 from 16,000. But, interestingly, we have new countries joining the list including El Salvador, Fiji, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria, among others.   Earlier in May, we also saw Facebook release its report revealing the increase in government requests for account data by 13 percent in the second half of 2015. The United States and India topped the list. Government requests for account data increased to 46,763 compared to 41,214 in the first half of the year. Facebook said in its report that about 60 percent of requests in the United States had a non-disclosure order prohibiting the company from notifying the user of the government request. It was for the first time Facebook has included details on non-disclosure orders since it started issuing the global requests reports in 2013. With the Apple-FBI tussle, terror attacks, attempts at defacing government websites, cloud for enterprise, and how we have all managed to get online for almost every task, these requests could be only climbing an uphill. There may be a slight drop, as pointed out by many, but that may not really last for too long.