New Research Shows How Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft Are Helping Government Surveillance

A new report from the privacy firm Surfshark has shown how global surveillance is increasing. According to the new research, governments are requesting almost 40 per cent more user data from Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft during 2020 than in the year before.

Out of all nations surveyed, the United States topped the list – accounting for nearly two million user accounts affected since 2013 and 469,000 in 2020 alone (on average over 585 accounts per 100,000 population were affected).

Second on the list was Germany, with 489 requests per 100,000, followed by the UK, with 486. Singapore and France round out the top five.

"The massive growth of online crime in 2020 went hand-in-hand with the increase in data requests that Big Tech companies received," says Agneska Sablovskaja, lead researcher at Surfshark.

"Globally, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic saw a staggering year-over-year growth of accounts requested for government surveillance from 0.9 million to 1.3 million. This could be attributed to everything moving online, including crime."

In terms of compliance, all of the four companies' surveyed complied. Apple has led in disclosure rate since 2016, raising it from 75% in 2016 to 85% in 2020. The remaining three companies average at 70%. More than half (58%) of all requests that Apple complied with had come from the US. 

Facebook’s disclosure rate is reported to have peaked at nearly 75 per cent in 2017, but has now dropped slightly to 73 per cent. Google similarly had a disclosure rate hit 76 per cent in 2020. Out of all the tech companies surveyed, only Microsoft’s has been falling throughout the whole eight-year period, with the company now complying with the fewest requests. 

Twitter was not featured in the report. However, in a blog post announcing the release of its 20th Transparency Report (also released last week), the company revealed that it experienced its highest-ever number of government data requests between July 1 2021.

"We continue to see a concerning trend toward attempts to limit global press freedom, with an increase in government legal demands targeting journalists, as well as an overall increasing number of legal demands on accounts," the company warned.

The report highlights the ongoing decline of the internet as we now know it. Read last month's article explaining how and why the internet is changing now to get the full picture.