5 ms·

Google Transparency Report – requests from government agencies for user data

38 points by ceekays 14y ago

mtgx 14y ago
Is this obtained only with a subpoena or with a warrant?
- cleverjake 14y ago
  This just represents requests, rather than actual fulfillments or valid requests.
  - vetuv 14y ago
    It does show the compliance rate of the request which I think is really high in some countries considering Google may not have been legally obligated to comply.
    - morsch 14y ago
      I wonder what kind and what amount of data is released. There's a range from the IP address that created, say, a YouTube video to an accounts entire GMail history to the entire Google profile associated with that account, including visited web pages as learned from ad networks etc. Not sure if they even store the latter in a way that could be part of a targeted request. A breakdown by product would be a start. On a sidenote that page has been available forever, it's not a new thing.
pav3l 14y ago
Interesting how requests from Russia, Turkey and Hungary are consistently ignored, how China is not on the list, and how Brazil's requests have very high compliance rate (similar to the U.S.)
fakeer 14y ago
India has defended her 2nd position consistently. Wonder what percentage of it was demanded by political parties (especially the ruling ones) out of their vested interests.
- aes256 14y ago
  Although India is listed second by number of requests, in terms of (unique) requests per capita, it comes near the bottom of the pile. Similarly, Brazil comes in third, but is fairly average (amongst the countries listed) in terms of requests per capita. The United States leads by a long way, then Australia, France, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong.
  - fakeer 14y ago
    No, I was just concerned about bare number. Hope this clears.
manveru 14y ago
I wonder why Austria isn't listed, while both Swiss and Germany have a lot of requests.
pyre 14y ago
The part I find interesting is the ratio of user accounts specified to # of requests. E.g. the United States made ~8k requests for ~16k user accounts.
- viseztrance 14y ago
  It also has a 90% compliance rate, higher than the rest. In the previous months it reaches 93 and 94%.
namank 14y ago
In complying, what kind of data does google provide?
Irishsteve 14y ago
Probably just easier to hack the accounts.
dmix 14y ago
Wow Canada has a similar population and political system as Australia but we only had 50 vs Australia's 523. What's going on there?
- tareqak 14y ago
  Canada has the Bell (telephone) and Rogers (cable) duopoly. In addition, both of them offer internet service and cellular data service. Odds are, if the Canadian government (agencies and governments underneath the Canadian federal government or any of the provincial governments and their subordinate agencies) ever did need information about anyone they could call one of these two companies first. Note: I am not at all sure if Canadian laws allow for this kind of thing, and I am not all accusing either company or any of their competitors of being party to such a request. I'm merely indicating that because of the market dominance of two very large telecommunication companies who practically own the cables underground, the airwaves above, and reasonable number of media outlets in Canada between them, the number of requests an entity would need to make to gather information about someone is pretty small. I would not be surprised if the order of requests for information went something like: call Rogers and get any info, call Bell and get any info, call Google and get any info. Edit: added "In addition,"
  - dmix 14y ago
    Good point, subpoena to a domestic company deeply connected to the government would be easier than targeting Google. I'm not sure what Australia's telecom situation is, but I'd imagine that would also be the case.
    - Evbn 14y ago
      ISP doesn't have a year of gmail account content.
sherjilozair 14y ago
Does this mean that my govt. can read all of my mails if they want to? Am I missing something? Why is no one complaining? Isn't there an email service which has 0% compliance? I would shift to that, now!
- namank 14y ago
  Call the Privacy Commissioner/Ministry of your country.
siddboots 14y ago
According to this, "URLs requested to be removed from Search per week" has increased 10-fold over the past six months. http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/ http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/

38 points by ceekays 14y ago

mtgx 14y ago

Is this obtained only with a subpoena or with a warrant?

cleverjake 14y ago
This just represents requests, rather than actual fulfillments or valid requests.
- vetuv 14y ago
  It does show the compliance rate of the request which I think is really high in some countries considering Google may not have been legally obligated to comply.
  - morsch 14y ago
    I wonder what kind and what amount of data is released. There's a range from the IP address that created, say, a YouTube video to an accounts entire GMail history to the entire Google profile associated with that account, including visited web pages as learned from ad networks etc. Not sure if they even store the latter in a way that could be part of a targeted request. A breakdown by product would be a start. On a sidenote that page has been available forever, it's not a new thing.

pav3l 14y ago

Interesting how requests from Russia, Turkey and Hungary are consistently ignored, how China is not on the list, and how Brazil's requests have very high compliance rate (similar to the U.S.)

fakeer 14y ago

India has defended her 2nd position consistently. Wonder what percentage of it was demanded by political parties (especially the ruling ones) out of their vested interests.

aes256 14y ago
Although India is listed second by number of requests, in terms of (unique) requests per capita, it comes near the bottom of the pile. Similarly, Brazil comes in third, but is fairly average (amongst the countries listed) in terms of requests per capita. The United States leads by a long way, then Australia, France, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong.
- fakeer 14y ago
  No, I was just concerned about bare number. Hope this clears.

manveru 14y ago

I wonder why Austria isn't listed, while both Swiss and Germany have a lot of requests.

pyre 14y ago

The part I find interesting is the ratio of user accounts specified to # of requests. E.g. the United States made ~8k requests for ~16k user accounts.

viseztrance 14y ago
It also has a 90% compliance rate, higher than the rest. In the previous months it reaches 93 and 94%.

namank 14y ago

In complying, what kind of data does google provide?

Irishsteve 14y ago

Probably just easier to hack the accounts.

dmix 14y ago

Wow Canada has a similar population and political system as Australia but we only had 50 vs Australia's 523. What's going on there?

tareqak 14y ago
Canada has the Bell (telephone) and Rogers (cable) duopoly. In addition, both of them offer internet service and cellular data service. Odds are, if the Canadian government (agencies and governments underneath the Canadian federal government or any of the provincial governments and their subordinate agencies) ever did need information about anyone they could call one of these two companies first. Note: I am not at all sure if Canadian laws allow for this kind of thing, and I am not all accusing either company or any of their competitors of being party to such a request. I'm merely indicating that because of the market dominance of two very large telecommunication companies who practically own the cables underground, the airwaves above, and reasonable number of media outlets in Canada between them, the number of requests an entity would need to make to gather information about someone is pretty small. I would not be surprised if the order of requests for information went something like: call Rogers and get any info, call Bell and get any info, call Google and get any info. Edit: added "In addition,"
- dmix 14y ago
  Good point, subpoena to a domestic company deeply connected to the government would be easier than targeting Google. I'm not sure what Australia's telecom situation is, but I'd imagine that would also be the case.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    ISP doesn't have a year of gmail account content.

sherjilozair 14y ago

Does this mean that my govt. can read all of my mails if they want to? Am I missing something? Why is no one complaining? Isn't there an email service which has 0% compliance? I would shift to that, now!

namank 14y ago
Call the Privacy Commissioner/Ministry of your country.

siddboots 14y ago

According to this, "URLs requested to be removed from Search per week" has increased 10-fold over the past six months. http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/ http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/