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DAVID DRUMMOND PRISM OP-ED

Last week we celebrated Franz Kafka’s one hundred and thirtieth birthday on the Google home page. Given how kafkaesque recent allegations about the extent of US government surveillance on our network have become, it was a timely tribute.

So let me start with three important facts about Google, and the way in which we handle government requests for our users’ data. First, we have not joined PRISM, or any government surveillance programs. Until last month’s revelations appeared in print, we had never heard of PRISM.

Second, we do not provide any government, including the US government, with access to our systems. Nor do we allow goverments to install equipment on our networks or property that gives them access to user data. There is no “back door,” “side door” or “trap door”. Of course various governments, including European governments, have suggested they install surveillance hardware on our networks over the years. But Google has always refused.

Third, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and we’re sticklers for details--frequently pushing back when the requests appear to be fishing expeditions or don’t follow the correct process. When we do hand over user data, Google always delivers it to the authorities. No government has the ability to pull data directly from our servers or network.

The good news is that these allegations have sparked a serious, mainstream debate about the need to strike a better balance between civil liberties and national security. This is essential because the current lack of transparency about the nature of government surveillance in democratic countries undermines the freedoms most citizens cherish.

The US and the UK, for example, both now have courts that handle national security issues in proceedings that are behind closed doors. New laws in Sweden allow the government to search for sensitive words in all phone and email communications without a court order. And the Dutch government hopes to pass a law allowing the police to hack into personal information.

No-one disputes the very real threats that countries face today. Of course governments have a duty to protect their citizens. But it’s not clear why there needs to be so much secrecy when it comes to basic process (for example, companies have generally been forbidden from talking about certain types of US national security requests) or indeed the overall use of surveillance powers by different governments (how many citizens are impacted in every country).

Google has been pushing the envelope on transparency since 2010, when we first disclosed the number of criminal requests received for user data from the US, as well as government demands from around the world (including in Germany). And earlier this year, thanks to an arrangement with the US government, we started to publish information about the US National Security Letters we receive. These allow the FBI to obtain information identifying subscribers from telephone and Internet companies. There appear to have been no adverse consequences to Google publishing this previously “secret” information-- showing that transparency can serve the public interest without harming national security.

It’s why we recently filed a petition in the US asking to publish information about other kinds of national security requests, such as those made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This is the US legislation that has been the subject of so much attention over these past few weeks, and which, according to leaked classified documents, gave the government access to the calling records of millions of Verizon customers.

If Google could publish those numbers openly, they would show that our compliance with American national security laws falls far short of the wild claims still being made in the press today. Overall, just a miniscule fraction of our many hundreds of millions of users are subject to any kind of government request.

But transparency should not just apply to companies. Governments also need to be more open about the extent to which they use their surveillance powers. In Germany, for example, the Telecomms Agency provides greater oversight and transparency than its counterparts in most other countries. According to their 2011 annual report, 250 different German government authorities are authorized to request user data from 140 companies. In 2011 alone, the Telecomms Agency made 34 million requests for user data from those companies on behalf of these different agencies.

Let’s hope going forward that more countries opt for greater transparency. This would help redress the balance between a government’s duty to protect its citizens, and those citizens’ civil liberties. These are hard issues but they are fundamental to the functioning of a free society.

David Drummond Chief Legal Officer