Google Report Shows Governments’ Increasing Demands for Users’ Data

Governments of all sizes are demanding that Google hand over growing troves of data about its users, according to the Internet giant’s latest transparency report.

The report is a tally of all the times a government has used its legal authority to demand that Google hand over internal data about the people who use Google products like Gmail, YouTube or its namesake search engine. This is the 10th time Google has released numbers on government data requests. Each time, the number of requests has risen sharply -- reflecting Google’s growth as a company as well as governments’ increasing use of the company’s data in criminal investigations. The roughly 32,000 requests Google fielded in the first six months of 2014 were up 15 percent from the previous six months, and up 150 percent since the company started publishing its transparency report in 2009. The growth was faster in the United States, with 19 percent growth in the first half of 2014 versus the previous six months, and up 250 percent since 2009.