Between January and June this year, the Indian government sought
information on web users 2,319 times. In its Transparency Report, the company says its
complied with 64 per cent of those requests .
India is second only to the US, which submitted 7,969 requests for user data, of which 90 per cent were partially or fully complied with.
In its official blog, Google said data from its sixth Transparency Report shows a clear rise in government surveillance.
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Government demands for user data have increased steadily since we first launched the Transparency Report. In the first half of 2012, there were 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 34,614 accounts," says the Transparency Report.
In 2011, the Indian government made 1,739 requests for user data between January and June. In the second half of the year, this increased to 2,207 requests, says the report.
The Google blog said the number of government requests to remove content from Google services was largely flat between 2009 and 2011. "But it spiked in this reporting period. In the first half of 2012, there were 1,791 requests from government officials around the world to remove 17,746 pieces of content."
Defamation accounted for 42 per cent - the highest - of the removal requests by the Indian government since July 2010. This was followed by impersonation and privacy/security, at 11 per cent each. Hate speeches and pornography accounted for just six per cent each of such requests.
There were 380 removal requests for items that showed up on Google web searches.
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