Mostly requests by law enforcement agencies.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: India has placed second on Google’s newest Data Transparency Report, which lists countries from around the world in order of how many requests the company receives for information regarding users’ web history.
Police and government agencies typically make these requests, in order to track suspects that law enforcement believes may be involved in some sort of crime. India registered 2,691 such requests between January and June of 2013, and another 2,513 in the last six months of the year, for a total of 5,204 information requests in all of 2013. India ranked second for the whole year, and second for the first half the year, but fourth for the second half of the year, behind the US, France, and then Germany.
India’s overall number is second only to the US, which had 10,918 requests in 2013’s first half, and 10,574 requests in the second half, adding up to a total of 21,492 “law enforcement agency requests†– the most, by far. Germany came in third place, with a total of 4,971 requests, France was #4 with 4,761 requests, and the UK was #5 with 2,671 requests.
“Like other technology and communications companies, Google regularly receives requests from governments and courts around the world to hand over user data,†said Google, in the introduction to the report. “We disclose the number of requests we receive from each government in six-month periods with certain limitations. [Our] usage of our services [has] increased every year, and so have the user data request numbers.â€
Total requests from around the world increased yet again, for the fourth year in a row. Requests have increased consistently in six-month intervals since the second half of 2009. The period of July-December of 2009 had a total of 12,539 requests, but that same time period in 2013 yielded 27,477 requests, an increase of over 119%. In terms of the difference between 2012 and 2013, the former had 42,327 and the latter had 53,356, meaning 2013 had an increase of 26%.
The information that India is second-highest in user requests mirrors a similar study done in Canada last year, which showed that India and the US also lead in terms of government agencies requesting Facebook information on potential criminals and the subjects of investigations. Neither company, however, discloses the exact reasons for each specific request.
The rest of the top ten was filled out by Brazil (#6, 2,324), Italy (#7, 1,797), Australia (#8, 1,425), Spain (#9, 1,192), and Poland (#10, 998). India was the only south Asian country to make the list – Pakistan is listed, but has no values to report with it, and countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are completely absent.