Hong Kong government making more requests for Google to hand over user data
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 21 September, 2014, 5:14am
UPDATED : Sunday, 21 September, 2014, 9:12am
Raquel Carvalho [email protected]
Data requests to Google on rise
Hong Kong authorities have become more active in requesting access to individuals' Google accounts. And with nearly half of the demands refused, there are now calls for each request to be accompanied by a judicial warrant to guarantee legitimacy.
The government and law enforcement agencies submitted 359 requests to Google to hand over information on 371 users in the first six months of the year - more than double the number made by the Japanese government but less than half those in Singapore, according to a Google Transparency Report released last week.
Google, whose figures show data requests rising worldwide, approved only 48 per cent of Hong Kong demands.
In 2010, the city filed 140 user data requests. The first privacy commissioner for personal data in Hong Kong, Stephen Lau Ka-men, said the main reasons behind the rise could be the increasing amount of data on the internet and an increase in crime. Last year, technology crimes in Hong Kong surged 70 per cent.
A spokesman for the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer said: "The requests are mainly related to crime prevention and detection as well as law enforcement."
Charles Mok, who represents the information technology sector in the legislature, said: "I see this trend as alarming as we have little way to judge whether the requests are legitimate."
He cited an "unreasonable" example where the government admitted that Hongkong Post had requested Google take down a video as it might affect its image and upset staff.
In the first six months of this year, authorities made just one request to remove content, and that was not accepted by Google. No further details are known.
Lawmaker James To Kun-sun shared Mok's concerns. "These requests could be an intrusion into privacy if there were no proper legal safeguards for them or even abuses of authority."
He said that last year the government admitted in a Legislative Council reply that all of its requests for removal or to review user information were made without a court order. To suggested amending the law to make such requests only possible with a court warrant. It would be a way of "taking into account both the protection of individuals' private data and the enforcement of laws", he said.
Marcelo Thompson, deputy director of the Law and Technology Centre at the University of Hong Kong, suggested that reports on data access requests should be published by the government as well as Google.
He said that while "it is not possible to expect our government to disclose the reasons for user information requests on an individual basis, we should expect a systematic reporting of the overall reasons underpinning such requests".
The government provided information on requests made in 2012 and 2013 following queries by Mok. The Sunday Morning Post requested information on the nature of demands to Google by each public department in the first half of the year, but the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer said it did not have readily available information.
