Transparency is the best defence?

In the wake of its censorship travails in China and its exit from that country, Google has now decided that transparency is the best defence against frequent government requests for data and for data removal. It has come up with what it calls a transparency tool, basically a map-based information guide to where governments stand with regard to Internet freedom. Click on a country and you will see how many requests Google has got from that government on providing data, and removing hosted data.

Google’s chief legal officer puts it like this:  "When we receive government requests to remove content from our sites, we are as transparent as possible with our users about what we have been required to block or remove so that they understand they may not be getting the full picture. The tool we are unveiling takes this transparency a step further and provides the total number of government requests we have received broken down by country, along with the percentage with which we have complied."  Compliance is determined by how specific the requests are, and in cases of alleged defamation whether the request is in an informal letter from a government agency, or has the authority of a court order.

And what does the new transparency tool show? That India figures among the top four countries in the world in both categories of requests: data, and data removal. Removal requests ask for removal of content from Google search results or from another Google product, including YouTube. For purposes of this report, data requests ask for information about Google user accounts or products.

Data requests

Brazil tops the list of countries requesting data with 3663 requests in six months, between July 1^st and December 31^st. Followed by the  US and  UK and then by India with 1061 requests. As for data removal requests India is number three with 142 requests, followed by the US with 123. Brazil tops the list again, followed by Germany. 

Data removal requests

Against China on this map, there is a question mark. Why? "Chinese officials consider censorship demands as state secrets, so we cannot disclose that information at this time."

The overall picture shows that a large number of countries ranging from Armenia to Turkey, and including Israel, and many European countries have had no more than 10 requests in six months.