Google seeks an international framework between governments to share data

Google has called the international community to make a unilateral framework that can enable easy and seamless sharing of data while ensuring that user privacy, human rights and due process are followed. The internet giant posted a blog post seeking the international framework after posting a  Transparency Report detailing the number of requests that governments across the world sent to the company asking for user data.

Google received more than 31,000 requests, the most number of request for user data in a six-month period since 2010, the year when Google started to post Transparency Reports. The company maintains that this is not unexpected because the number of people using services by Google has grown exponentially.

The post detailed one metric where Gmail had about 425 million active users in 2012 and that number has increased to more than 1 billion in 2016. To keep things in perspective, Government of India requested date 3,449 times and Google has responded to 57 percent of these cases.

Google maintains that it will continue to cooperate with law enforcement but the company does seek proper legal process so that the requests don’t go overboard while asking for data. The provided data will also be the minimum necessary to ensure privacy. The company wants to reforms the process of cross-border requests for data as the age of the internet has increased the instances where the crimes have been committed in one country and the digital evidence associated with the crime is stored on servers in another country.

Kent Walker, the Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Google did admit that the issue with such data requests is that there is no uniform framework to handle the digital information exchange. The legal system in the United States does contain ‘The Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty’ (MLAT) that allows countries to exchange data, but it can take about 10 months to process any MLAT request and such a long wait would be counterproductive for the investigation and the investigator-in-charge of solving a case.

India has been trying to bypass the situation by forcing international companies to set up servers in India so that they can take control of the data stored within the country without engaging in the lengthy process of requesting user data from Google headquarters in the United States.

One important thing to note here is that the company did admit the issues that could rise as a result of the discussion on the formation of this framework. The company believes that detailed discussion for the formation of the framework will bring very ‘difficult’ questions. The questions Google is referring to here relate to the scope of surveillance powers that most governments hold in addition to questions about the extent of jurisdiction and the need for privacy rights in the digital age.

Google believes that the framework for data sharing will help reduce, or result in the removal of, the ad hoc surveillance measures that the governments are forced to practice because of the lack any framework.

Google continued by saying that it claims that Governments can develop a framework that strikes a balance between interests which include privacy rights and a government’s obligation to serve and protect its citizens by investigating crimes. The company further points out that the conversation should include civil society groups, voices of citizens and information service providers across the world to create a cohesive framework.