Data demands to Google reach new high; US tops list

Data requests to Google from law enforcement agencies worldwide during the second half of 2015 reached a record high, surpassing the 40,000 mark for the first time since the tech company started, the numbers from Google's latest transparency report show.

In total, the company received 40,677 data requests - up from 35,365 in the first half of the year, and 30,140 one year before.

To nobody's surprise, the US government made the most requests during this time, making 12,523 requests for data from 27,157 Google users. Among those cases, Google complied with the requests - though not necessarily in their entirety - 79 per cent of the time. That number is up from 12,022 requests in the first half of 2015.

In second place came Germany, with 7,491 requests in the second half of the year (up from 3,903 in the first half of 2015), then France with 4,174 requests (up from 3,489), the UK with 3,497 (up from 3,146) and India with 3,265 (up from 3,087).

The United States, Germany and France making the top three on the list - especially Germany, which saw the number of requests nearly double within the span of a few months, is hardly surprising. All three countries were the target of assorted of terrorist attacks in the latter half of 2015, and based on how the year has gone so far, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect the number of requests to increase yet again for the first half of 2016.

Google's transparency reports allow the common user to have an idea about how international governments and states are trying to use and access our data. Perhaps even more importantly, they let users see how much information Google actually gives up.

Google can claim a pioneering role as it has have triggered similar reports from other tech companies such as Twitter and Facebook. Furthermore, the number of companies releasing such reports has only increased in number since 2013, when ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked a cache of top-secret documents that detailed how various world governments were "spying" on their citizens and sharing that information with the NSA.

"Google is proud to have led the charge on publishing these reports, helping shed light on government surveillance laws and practices across the world," the company said in a blog post.