UK retains 4th place in Google “most snooped on citizens” list

It’s that time again, when Google release their Transparency Report and I take a look at the per-capita rather than raw data.

The Google Transparency Report lists the number of requests via the courts or law enforcement, by country, for user data. These are often from governments but might also be in response to court orders – the only contry where this is broken down is the United States where The latest figures this time are for the second half of 2012 (2012 H2) so Google are now rather more up to date than they used to be, when they released data 6 months behind. There is remarkably little to report this time, with most countries maintaining their positions in the chart. Australia and France have swapped places, but remain remarkably close to each other, whilst the UK remains in fourth place.

What we do have now that we’ve not had previously is enough data to make it worthwhile charting the progress of Google user data requests over time. The upward trend in the number of requests per country is obvious, as is the fact that despite dropping to fourth place, there is still a steady rise in the number of requests in the UK – we have only dropped down due to other countries increasing their requests at an even more rapid rate.