Source: THE GUARDIAN

Government demands for information on google’s users have risen 150% since the tech giant first started publishing their numbers, the company said on monday. In the us the number of requests leapt 250%.

According to Google’s latest transparency report, in the first half of 2014, the number of government demands rose 15% compared to the second half of last year, and a 150% increase since Google first began publishing this data in 2009. In the US those increases are 19% and 250% respectively.

“This increase in government demands comes against a backdrop of revelations about government surveillance programs,” Google legal director Richard Salgado wrote in a blogpost. “Despite these revelations, we have seen some countries expand their surveillance authorities in an attempt to reach service providers outside their borders. Others are considering similar measures.”

He wrote that governments had a “legitimate and important role in fighting crime and investigating national security threats”, but added that laws needed to be transparent. “To maintain public confidence in both government and technology, we need legislative reform that ensures surveillance powers are transparent, reasonably scoped by law, and subject to independent oversight,” he wrote.

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