Cyber Snooping –Government or Private. Do we really have a choice? Midhun Patel. Facebook released its country wise figure on the data requested by various Governments across the globe for the first six months of 2013.USA as usual topped the chart with around 20,000 user account requests. India came second with 4144 user account requests followed by United Kingdom (2337) and Italy (2308). Increased discussions recently regarding Government spying it’s citizens in the name of internal security, this data gives some insight. Even though India’s number of requests are high, considering the number of Facebook users (6,27,13680) which is second highest after United States. In requests made per million Facebook users, India comes seventh which is a good news for our Government. Malta comes first here with 410 requests per million Facebook users followed by Germany (74) and Italy (73). Countries that made more than ten requests are considered here. Considering India’s position of being a potential victim of internal and external terrorist plots, I think it’s appropriate for Governments to collect or check potential threats. This will ensure that no more human life is lost or a potential criminal can be caught before he/she commit a crime. But in the past with POTA-Prevention of Terrorism Act and TADA-Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, we saw abuse of power and victimisation of rivals .Even Malta’s high percentage of requests are seen as political and economic counter measure as this small country is a tax haven for Russian oligarchs. The question here is how our online data is used and manipulated for financial gain by internet giants like Google, Facebook or apps installed inside our mobile .I rather prefer Government to do this dirty work than any private firm collecting our sensitive data. Virtually all online electronic devices now collect user data for various purposes. So we as Cyber Citizens now must learn to live in this new world order where your interaction in this Cyber World is subject to monitoring and more likely that data can be used by some private, or even here in UK ,Government sell data to private firms in exchange of money .(They do ask your consent!). Below is the link for country wise data. newsroom.fb/News/699/Global-Government-Requests-Report
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 07:56:24 +0000
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