US And EU Nations Request The Most User Data From Tech Companies, Obtain It More Than Two-Thirds Of The Time

Studies

from the may-as-well-just-be-government-contractors dept

Most tech companies handling data requests from governments now publish transparency reports. As everything moves towards always-online status (including, you know, your fridge), social media platforms and other online services have become the favored targets of government data requests. It just makes sense to look there first rather than out there in the real world, where people (and their communications) are that much more difficult to locate.

Consequently, what started out as a cottage industry has quickly become a front-of-the-house operation for many governments. Year-after-year data request increases are the new normal. Twitter reported a record high in government requests last year, along with a doubling of the number targeting journalists. The only countries submitting fewer requests for user data were those (like Russia) which had blocked citizens’ access to the platform.

These trends continue. A VPN provider has compiled data from multiple companies’ transparency reports into one handy report — one that shows requests continue to skyrocket… and that these requests are complied with more often than not.

As detailed in SurfShark’s new report which analysed user data requests that Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft received from government agencies of 177 countries between 2013 and 2021, Tech giants get a lot of requests for user data, and the majority of the time, they comply.   

Of the four Big Tech companies studied, Apple was the most forthcoming, complying with 82% of requests for user data, compared to Meta (72%), Google (71%), and Microsoft (68%). Interestingly, Big Tech was more compliant in the UK than when compared to global figures, disclosing user data 81.6% of the time.

In the nine years since these companies began producing transparency reports (all following the 2013 Snowden leaks), government requests have more than tripled. And the spike isn’t due to increased (shall we say) participation from governments with lots of human rights abuses on their permanent records. No, it’s the US and EU leading the way, with the United States taking the top spot, followed by Germany. The top 10 also includes the UK, France, Ireland, Portugal, and Belgium.

The outliers are Singapore and Taiwan — nations more often linked to pervasive surveillance and government oppression than the ones doing most of the asking.

Also of note is the compliance rate. Apple may have cultivated a reputation for protecting its users’ privacy and security but it’s also the tech company with the highest compliance rate. It has a ten percentage point lead on the second place company, Meta — a company rarely (if ever) associated with terms like security or privacy.

The year-over-year increases are unsurprising. You go where the data is and, increasingly, it’s housed by these four companies. But the increase in compliance is somewhat disheartening. It could signal that government agencies are crafting better, more targeted requests. Or it may signal that the steady increase in the number of requests means requests aren’t necessarily receiving all the scrutiny they deserve. Whatever the case, it’s something that bears watching. Fortunately, this VPN provider is making it that much easier to do.

Filed Under: government requests, law enforcement, subpoenas, surveillance, transparency, transparency reports, warrants