India has been ranked first in South Asia based on government requests for user data from Big Tech companies, revealed a report on Government Requests for User Data published by Surfshark research hub. This is as per a report by the Economic Times.
With a population of 1,402,807,867 in 2021, there were 823,333 accounts specified in requests from 2013 to 2021 from the Indian government.
This accounted for 58.69 accounts per 10,000 population. The firm uses information from transparency reports published by four major tech companies — Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft. Identifying 177 countries whose government agencies have requested user data from these companies between 2013 and 2021, the report found that the US and the EU requested data the most.
Introducing such new measures could help solve serious criminal cases. Civil society organisations have expressed their concerns of encouraging surveillance techniques to track down political rivals.
- The Surfshark research hub analysed user data requests that Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft received from government agencies of 177 countries between 2013 and 2021
Apple, Meta, Google and Microsoft were asked to disclose the data of more than 823,000 accounts by the Indian government between 2013 and 2021.
- While most requests relate to criminal investigations, information may also be requested in the context of civil or administrative cases
- The analysis is based on the latest Big Tech public records
- India ranks 36th in the world for online accounts’ data requested over this time period (58.7 accounts per 100,000 peBoth account for around 60% of all accounts of interest from 2013 to 2021ople)
- China ranks 65th with 6.7 accounts per 100,000
- Nepal ranks 59th with 11 accounts per 100,000 The number of accounts requested increased more than five times from 2013 to 2021, with 2021 seeing a year-over-year increase of around 25%
- The US and the EU authorities requested data the most.
- To compare the two, the US requested more than double the accounts per 100K people than all the EU countries combined
- Companies comply with more requests every year. On average, each year saw a 56k increase