India’s User Data Request From Big Techs Highest Among South Asian Nations: Report

The Indian government made the highest number of requests for user data from tech giants like Google and Microsoft in the South Asian region, as per a report by the Netherlands-based virtual private network (VPN) service provider Surfshark.

The Indian government agencies, on an average, requested user data of 58.69 accounts per 1 lakh individuals between 2013 and 2021, which was more than any other South Asian country, the report said. However, India ranked 36th in the world as the US and several European countries including the UK, Germany, France, Italy, made more such requests.

The Surfshark analysis, based on the transparency reports published by Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, suggested that the Indian government requested user data of 8,23,333 accounts during 2013-2021.

The report comes at a time when the Indian government is closely examining the big tech platforms for their violation of the country’s norms. The Centre has also also introduced various amendments to the existing rules to further regulate the digital space.

Last year, Twitter took the Indian government to the Karnataka High Court alleging that officials were abusing their power by seeking removal of certain content pieces. Twitter also said that some block orders “pertain to political content that is posted by official handles of political parties”. Meanwhile, the IT ministry threatened to remove the microblogging platform’s social media intermediary status if it failed to comply with the IT Rules. The case is ongoing.

In April last year, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) also issued an order mandating all private VPNs, Virtual Private Server (VPS) providers, cloud service providers, and such other organisations to collect user data and store them for at least five years to ensure better cyber security. 

This sparked a debate about misuse of user data in the absence of a robust data protection law in the country. Subsequently, several VPN service providers, including Surfshark, Nord VPN, Proton VPN, and Express VPN, removed their India servers. 

In its revised draft of IT Rules, 2021, the Indian government has also mandated introducing a Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) for social media platforms, news aggregators, OTT platforms, and various other OTT platforms. 

However, it must be noted that with increasing digitisation and use of the internet, governments across the world have started seeking more data from big tech companies over the last few years. 

Overall, the number of account requests increased over 5X globally from 2013 to 2021, with 2021 seeing a year-on-year increase of around 25%, Surfshark noted in its recent analysis.

For Google, the user data requests increased from about 5 Lakh in 2020 to 7.3 Lakh in 2021. For Meta, it increased from 6.1 Lakh to 7.2 Lakh in 2021. Between 2013-2021, Meta hosted the most accounts that interested authorities among all four companies, the report said.

The US led all the countries globally, with its government seeking user data of 728.41 accounts, on an average, per 1 lakh individuals during 2013-2021. The US was followed by Germany, Singapore, and the UK.