Details of 5,500 Google Accounts Handed Over to Australian Authorities

The Google logo is seen on a phone in this photo illustration in Washington on July 10, 2019. (Alastair Pike/AFP via Getty Images)

In one year, tech giant Google received over 6,300 requests from Australian authorities to disclose user data.

According to Google’s “Global Requests for User Information” report, the search giant allows government agencies around the world to submit requests for information for “civil, administrative, criminal, and national security purposes.”

“In this Global Requests report, we share information about the number and type of requests we receive from government agencies where permitted by applicable laws,” Google says.

In Australia, over the course of 2022, the tech giant received 6,335 requests for information regarding the activities of 7,183 accounts.

Google ended up agreeing to 5,525 requests from Australian authorities, likely including law enforcement and online safety agencies.

Requests can be divided into different categories depending on the company; for example, “legal requests” refer to general requests for data from law enforcement agencies, “emergency requests” are made in reference to an emergency situation, and “preservation requests” involve the preservation of data.

The company also responds to requests for “enterprise cloud” customers—namely large organisations and businesses—and for diplomatic purposes.

Requests for User Data At New Peaks

Requests of this nature have increased yearly, notably since 2014, when there were just 1,711 requests for data.

However, by 2020, data requests reached 5,914 and 6,484 in 2021. The same upward trend can be seen in the United States and the United Kingdom, with requests for user data increasing and plateauing from the pandemic years.

In 2014, U.S. authorities issued 22,520 requests for data, which increased to 111,608 by 2022.

On average, Google will acquiesce to around 75 to 85 percent of requests.

A similar situation is playing out with Meta (formerly Facebook) across the UK, United States, and Australia.

In 2014 in Australia, Meta received just 1,439 requests for user information, and yet by 2020, this number increased to 2,965, and by 2022 reached 4,287.

While U.S. authorities issued 29,700 requests in 2014 and 133,500 in 2022.

“Each and every request we receive is carefully reviewed for legal sufficiency, and we may reject or require greater specificity on requests that appear overly broad or vague,” Meta says on its website.

Privacy vs. Law Enforcement

The pervasiveness of technology (and all the data-tracking tools that come with it) has raised questions about just how far civil liberties can be curbed online by law enforcement agencies—placing tech giants smack bang in the middle of the debate.

One notable example was Google providing the location data of 5,723 cellular devices during the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riots via a “geofence dragnet.”

The tech giant was “compelled” to provide mobile phone data within a four-acre area around the Capitol between 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

The move has been criticised for potentially violating the First and Fourth U.S. Amendments.

“This is a huge area of land around the Capitol that is typically accessible to the public,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, in an interview with The Epoch Times.

“As many of those thousands were there in unknowing violation of the rules, exercising their First Amendment rights.”

In recent years, intelligence and law enforcement agencies across the Five Eyes nations (the U.S., UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia) have increased collaboration on tackling crime and “extremism” online, which may also contribute to more requests for data.

At the same time, in Australia, efforts to regulate “misinformation” continue with the federal Labor government with its Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023.

The bill will grant the media regulatory body, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), powers to stamp out mis- or disinformation online via a two-step process.

The first step will see ACMA request social media companies develop a code of practice (industry codes), which will be registered and enforced by the ACMA.

A breach of this code will attract significant penalties, including a $2.75 million (US$1.85 million) fine or two percent of global turnover—whichever is greater.

If the code fails, the second tier of regulation will see ACMA itself create and enforce an industry standard (a stronger form of regulation) that will attract even higher penalties of $6.8 million or five percent of global turnover—millions for Twitter and billions for companies like Meta (Facebook).

ACMA will also have the power to request records of social media posts from the likes of Google, Twitter, and Meta.