Government agencies seek more information about users of popular online services
29 Jan 2013
Government agencies around the world are requesting more information about users of popular services like Twitter with the companies handing over data in the majority of cases.
Yesterday, on a date recognised by US Congress as "Data Privacy Day," Twitter reported that government agencies raised their requests for user information by nearly 19 per cent in the second half of 2012.
Meanwhile, Google chief legal officer, David Drummond, also used the occasion to reaffirm the search giant's key initiatives for protection of users' privacy and security against probing by the government.
The company noted in the second edition of its biannual Transparency Report, that 815 of the 1,009 requests made to it by a government from July to December 2012 originated from within US - 90 per cent of them from subpoenas, search warrants and court orders filed by law enforcement agencies.
Twitter says users are notified by it unless the company was prohibited from doing so by law.
Twitter which is positioning itself as a protector of free speech, aims to show the implications of ''invasive requests'' about Twitter members.
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