Google Transparency Report: More Swiss inquiries about Internet crime
A new record in terms of requested transparency: the Federal Office of Police (Fedpol) and the cantons submitted more requests to the Internet giant Google last year in order to obtain information about users.
Swiss daily newspapers quote the latest transparency report of the Google-Group. SonntagsBlick" reports that the internet giant received a total of 1097 inquiries. In 2018, there were only 634 requests. The Fedpol alone deposited a total of 407 requests with Google in 2019.
Most of them concerned child pornography (around 46 percent) and fraud (around 37 percent), the Fedpol said in response to a query from the Keystone-SDA news agency about the "SonntagsBlick" report.
The Fedpol makes inquiries with providers when user data is needed to clarify a criminal case under federal jurisdiction. This happens, for example, if a perpetrator is unknown but an email address is available, the Fedpol added.
New record: hundreds of requests for deletion
According to the "SonntagsBlick" article, federal and cantonal prosecutors have asked Google to hand over data on Swiss users more than a thousand times in the past year. This was a new record, it said.
The investigation measures mainly affected Gmail and YouTube accounts. Around 83 percent of the requests (July to December 2019) were granted, it said. In the first half of 2019, 75 percent of the requests were approved, according to the data.
