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Online surveillance spikes in 2012

Kathryn McConnachie
By Kathryn McConnachie, Digital Media Editor at ITWeb.
Johannesburg, 14 Nov 2012
Government requests submitted to Google for the removal of content.
Government requests submitted to Google for the removal of content.

Google says government surveillance is on the rise. This follows the release of its latest Transparency Report, with data on government requests submitted to the search giant between January and June.

Senior policy analyst at Google, Dorothy Chou, says government demands for user data have increased steadily since Google's first Transparency Report was released in 2010. "In the first half of 2012, there were 20 938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 34 614 accounts.

"The number of government requests to remove content from our services was largely flat from 2009 to 2011. But it's spiked in this reporting period. In the first half of 2012, there were 1 791 requests from government officials around the world to remove 17 746 pieces of content."

According to Chou, the information disclosed in the Transparency Report is "only an isolated sliver" showing how governments interact with the Internet. "Since, for the most part, we don't know what requests are made of other technology or telecommunications companies. But we're heartened that in the past year, more companies like Dropbox, LinkedIn, Sonic.net and Twitter have begun to share their statistics too. Our hope is that, over time, more data will bolster public debate about how we can best keep the Internet free and open."

In the report released by Twitter earlier this year, the micro-blogging site said it had received more government requests in the first half of 2012 than in the whole of 2011. In the first half of the year, Twitter received 3 378 copyright takedown notices, but only removed the material in 38% of cases. The total number of tweets removed by Twitter between January and June is 5 275.

SA on the map

According to Google, the top three reasons cited by governments for content removal were defamation, privacy and security.

Government requests submitted to Google for user data.
Government requests submitted to Google for user data.

The report states that, for the first time, Google received three content removal requests by court order from the South African government. All of the requests pertained to alleged defamation and Google was asked to remove 10 Web search items and one blog. Google has not provided any further detail as to what the items pertained to, but it is stated that 100% of the requests were fully or partially complied with. SA does not feature on the list of countries that requested user data.

The US tops the list for the volume of user data requests submitted, with a total of 7 969 requests, pertaining to 16 281 user accounts. The US also has the highest percentage of user data requests complied with by Google, at 90%.

The full report and information on specific countries can be viewed here.

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