Governments submitted a total of 44,943 data requests to Google in the first half of the year, compared to 40,667 last year, according to the company’s latest transparency report. Google noted it is getting more requests as the years pass, partly because its services are getting increasingly used. Governments, courts and investigative and intelligence agencies can submit data requests to Google. Google does not answer all data requests but assesses them in terms of validity.
The company noted though that while the number of requests have gone up, the number of accounts concerned went down, going to 76,713 accounts this year from 91,311 last year. Google fulfilled 64 percent of the requests, delivering all of part of the data asked for.
From the Netherlands, Google received 268 data requests related to a total of 280 user accounts. The company said it responded to 67 percent of the requests. In the second half of 2015, Google received 210 requests from the Netherlands, on 216 different accounts. The company responded to 69 percent of the requests.
Belgium experienced a decrease in the number of data requests, falling to 248 in H1 2016 from 268 the year earlier. Belgium however often asks for data from multiple accounts. In the second half of last year, requests came in for 350 accounts. The number went to 326 this year. Google fulfilled 72 percent of the requests this year and 50 percent last year.
