Google has revealed that Taiwanese authorities sent 548 requests for user information from January to June this year.
Requests for user information from governments around the world have been increasing markedly. During the first half of the year, the search engine giant received a total of more than 30,000 information requests. The requests covered 48,615 users.
But Google is not obligated to respond to government requests for user information. The search engine says it only complied with information requests in 65% of cases worldwide. The rate of compliance with requests from Taiwan authorities was much lower, at only 3%.
Richard Salgado, Google’s legal director, wrote in a blog post that governments around the world play a legitimate and important role in fighting crime and investigating threats to national security. But he also said that there will need to be legislative reform in order to ensure that surveillance is kept within reasonable legal limits and maintain transparency.