Google reveals sharp rise in government data requests

PanARMENIAN.Net - Google has revealed a sharp rise in government data requests over the past three years in its updated transparency report, Digital Spy said.

The web giant claims that legal requests from world governments have doubled, while those from the U.S. government have tripled since 2010.

"This comes as usage of our services continues to grow, but also as more governments have made requests than ever before," said Google in a statement. "And these numbers only include the requests we're allowed to publish."

The search engine firm also broke the figures down on a per-country basis, revealing that the U.S. made by far the most data requests, with 10,918 inquiries coming from the Obama administration.

India came in second with 2,691, followed by Germany, France and the UK, with the latter lodging 2,174 requests.

Google is prohibited from publishing specific data about the nature of the data request, but has lobbied the U.S. government for more transparency regarding the information it is able to disclose to users.

Apple, Facebook and Microsoft have also pressured the Obama administration for more transparency over user data requests after the controversial PRISM surveillance system was brought to light by whistleblower Edward Snowden.