Data sought on 10 Irish Google accounts

Irish authorities sought disclosure from Google on 10 user accounts in the first six months of the year.

The tenth Google Transparency Report shows a world-wide increase of 150 per cent in government demands for user information over the last five years and an increase of 15 per cent since the second half of last year alone.

Published twice-yearly, the report discloses the number of requests received from governments across the world in six-month periods.

In total, Google received 31,698 requests on user data relating to 48,615 accounts across the world in the period January-June and data was provided in 65 per cent of cases.

In Ireland’s case, the company received requests for user data relating to 10 accounts and 30 per cent of requests were met.

This compares with 15 requests for user data relating to 51 accounts in the previous July-December 2013 period.

The United States was by far the country with the greatest number of requests with 12,539 demands by authorities for user data affecting 21,576 accounts. Of these, 84 per cent of requests were met.

In the UK, 1,535 requests affecting 1,991 accounts were made and of these, 72 per cent were complied with. France saw 3,002 requests for data affecting 3,826 accounts and 59 per cent of these were met.

Governments ask companies to remove or review content for reasons including allegations of defamation or when the content violates local laws prohibiting hate speech or adult content.

Google received 2 requests from Irish authorities for the removal of material from YouTube in the first six-month period of the year. One of these requests was complied with.

Google legal director Richard Salgado said: "This increase in government demands comes against a backdrop of ongoing revelations about government surveillance programs"

While Mr Salgado said governments have a legitimate and important role in fighting crime and investigating national security threats, he called for legislative reform “that ensures surveillance powers are transparent, reasonably scoped by law, and subject to independent oversight.”