Google Now Includes National Security Requests in Its Transparency Report, But It’s Really Unspecific

Google has added another metric to its Transparency Report so users can identify yet another manner where the govt is requesting their information.

Starting today, Google is now including data about National Security Letters on its U.S. Transparency Report.

National Security Letters (NSL) are a sort of a requirement letter which might be utilized by the U.S. Government (mostly the FBI) to extract information from a company inside the name of national security. The type of info requested in NSLs includes stuff like transactions, phone numbers, and email addresses.

In the period following 9/11, the FBI’s use of National Security Letters dramatically increased with the implementation of the Patriot Act.

The thing about NSLs is they also come complete with a gag order (often), so the corporations who received the letter can’t discuss it with the users whose information was requested. For the Transparency Report, Google has worked with the FBI to loosen this secrecy ever so slightly.

The very first thing that you just’ll notice when staring at the recent NSL stats is they are unspecific to a ludicrous degree. For example, Google is barely reporting the collection of NSLs received in batches of one,000. That implies that each year on record (2009-present) has logged between 0 and 999 NSLs.

“You’ll notice that we’re reporting numerical ranges in place of exact numbers. Here’s to deal with concerns raised by the FBI, Justice Department and other agencies that releasing exact numbers might reveal details about investigations. We plan to update these figures annually,” says Google.

I guess something is healthier than nothing. Still, it’s an amazing leap forward for the Google Transparency Report.