Global Law Enforcement Requests for Google User Data Top 40,000 in 2nd Half of 2015
Google received more than 40,000 global law enforcement requests for user data in the second half of 2015, a 35 percent jump from the same six-month period during the prior year, the company said in an updated transparency report. The…
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company said it provided some data on about 64 percent of the requests, roughly the same number over the past several periods. For all of 2015, Google received more than 76,000 data requests, about 23 percent more than in 2014. Google said more than 81,000 users/accounts were specified in the July-December data requests for 2015. That figure, Monday's report said, is "over-inclusive" and doesn't reflect unique users/accounts because it might include, for example, the same Gmail account listed in several different requests or the company might get a request for a nonexistent account. Google said it "decided it is better to err on the side of a greater number." U.S. law enforcement agencies made more than 12,500 user data requests for the second half of 2015, or about 25 percent more than the same period in 2014, with Google providing some data on about 79 percent of those requests, the report said. The U.S. made the most requests, with Germany ranking second with almost 7,500, the company said. Of the U.S. requests, more than 7,200 were subpoenas, more than 3,700 were search warrants, while about 1,000 were for other court orders, said the report.