PrivacyGoogle wants to limit law enforcement’s access to e-mails, users’ information
In 2012 Google received 16,407 requests for user data, which affected 31,072 users or accounts. More than half of the requests were accompanied with a subpoena, the others were not. Google is planning on lobbying Washington this year to persuade lawmakers that they should make it harder for law enforcement to gain access to e-mails and other digital messages.
Google is planning on lobbying Washington this year to persuade lawmakers that they should make it harder for law enforcement to gain access to e-mails and other digital messages.
In a blog post linked to Data Privacy Day, Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, said the company, along with many other powerful tech companies, will attempt to convince Congress to update a 1986 privacy protection law. Drummond cited evidence that showed government requests for Google’s user data has increased more than 70 percent in the four years.
The Mercury News reports that the U.S. Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which was passed in the early days of the Internet, does not require law enforcement to have a search warrant when requesting access to old e-mails and messages which are stored online. The act provides less protection to digital information than to letters stored in a drawer in someone’s home or office.
In most cases a warrant is approved by a judge if investigators have “probable cause” to believe that a search would turn up information related to a crime.
According to Google, in 2012 the company received 16,407 requests for user data, which affected 31,072 users or accounts. More than half of the requests were accompanied with a subpoena.
“We’re a law-abiding company, and we don’t want our services to be used in harmful ways. But it’s just as important that laws protect you against overly broad requests for your personal information,” Drummond said in the post.
Microsoft, Yahoo, and Twitter have all put policies in place, based on the constitutional protection from unreasonable searches, which require search warrants for access to content of private communications.
Last year Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) introduced a bill which would have updated the current act, but many were concerned that the bill would stop law enforcement from conducting criminal investigations and endanger victims.
“After three decades, it is essential that Congress update ECPA to ensure that this critical law keeps pace with new technologies and the way Americans use and store email today,” Leahy said in a statement on Monday.
Leahy’s legislation died late last year when Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia) drafted another version of the bill that addressed other issues, but did not include privacy reform.
