Google reveals full extent of UK government snooping

 

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Posted on 21 Apr 2010 at 12:55

In an aim for greater transparency about government requests for access to data or content removal, Google has launched a Government requests tool that shows the full extent of UK snooping.

The tool displays a map of the world alongside the number of requests for access to data and the number of requests for the removale of content. Although Brazil topped both lists, the UK was the highest-placed country in Europe for Data requests with 1,166 made between 1st July 2009 and 31st December 2009.

For content removal, the UK was sixth overall, behind Brazil, Germany, India, the US and South Korea, with 59 requests. According to the data provided by Google, 76.3 per cent of requests were complied with and were comprised of:

1 AdWords

1 Blogger

1 Geo (except Street View)

1 Groups (court order)

1 Image Search (court order)

1 Image Search

8 Web Search (court order)

2 Web Search

43 YouTube

Although the data doesn't include the reasons for why the requests were made or complied with, it at least gives an idea as to how various governments are dealing with the internet and makes the process more transparent.

"We already try to be as transparent as legally possible with respect to requests. Whenever we can, we notify users about requests that may affect them personally. If we remove content in search results, we display a message to users," said the official blog post. "The numbers we are sharing today take this transparency a step further and reflect the total number of requests we have received broken down by jurisdiction. We are also sharing the number of these content removal requests that we do not comply with, and while we cannot yet provide more detail about our compliance with user data requests in a useful way, we intend to do so in the future."

Author: David Ludlow