Google Got 21,000 User Data Requests from Governments in the Second Half of 2012 Alone

Google's Transparency Report, which last year added copyright infringement takedown requests, has proven a valuable tool, if only to get a sense of the scale of the problem. Google is back with the latest data, covering the second half of 2012, showing all the government and law enforcement requests it got in that time.

"We’re always looking for ways to make the report even more informative. So for the first time we’re now including a breakdown of the kinds of legal process that government entities in the U.S. use when compelling communications and technology companies to hand over user data," Google explained.

It shouldn't be a surprise that the number of requests Google gets from governments has been increasing ever since it started keeping tabs.

Google got 21,389 requests on 33,634 users in the last half of 2012, a 70 percent increase from the last half of 2009 when it got 12,539 requests.

As always, Google provides an overview of the entire world and you can also find the data for various countries, the most "active."