Google Causes Roadblock for Governments Seeking User Information

There have been numerous articles in the news lately about privacy issues, user information, and what rights government authorities are granted when searching for private user information.  One of the first blog articles I wrote discussed this very issue in regards to text messages, and it seems user privacy online has moved into the spotlight.

Now Google has released a statement saying they are going to make it more difficult for governments to access the data Google has collected, including emails, without a judge approved warrant. Currently, it is relatively easy for the government to take a look at your emails, as long as they are less than 180 days old. The law even states that police do not need a warrant for access to these emails, and unfortunately, email messages have less protection than printed paper messages. Hard copy printing has been around since the mid-1400s, so naturally laws have evolved and changed over the centuries to accommodate this. Emails on the other hand, were not developed until the 1970s, and were only adopted into modern culture in the late 1980s to early 1990s. This could explain why email privacy has taken so long to come to the forefront when discussing user security.

 According to statistics, requests for information have more than doubled in the last 3 years, up 70%. The vast majority of these requests are subpoenas, and these do not need a judge’s approval. The problem with subpoenas is they have a very broad scope. The law thinks that a subpoena is enough to ask for “detailed personal data,” which Google argues is incorrect. Google is fighting this by asking for search warrants if the government wants this personal user data, which does not include name, location, phone number and time an email was sent.  Google has been more transparent in the last few years about what information the government has been requesting, and has only handed over two-thirds of the information authorities have asked for.

Now that Google has made the process more difficult for law enforcement, other online companies are following suit, such as Twitter. This is a relief to users who want to ensure their data is protected and only obtained lawfully. Congress is said to be reviewing proposed amendments to the 1986 law sometime this year.

What do you guys think? Is Google right to challenge the government’s right to user data, or should there be an exception made for those in law enforcement? Let me know in the comments below! Thanks for listening!

Until next time,

Julie Heinrich

 

Sources: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/google-says-electronic-snooping-by-governments-should-be-more-difficult/

http://allthingsd.com/20130128/twitter-google-get-more-transparent-with-information-requests/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press