Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Global surveillance is increasing, with governments requesting almost 40 per cent more user data from Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft during 2020 than in the year before. According to a report from privacy firm Surfshark, the US topped the list, with nearly two million user accounts affected since 2013 and 469,000 in 2020 alone. This represents a little over 585 accounts per 100,000 population. Second on the list was Germany, with 489 requests per 100,000, followed by the UK, with 486. Singapore and France round out the top five. "The massive growth of online crime in 2020 went hand-in-hand with the increase in data requests that Big Tech companies received," says Agneska Sablovskaja, lead researcher at Surfshark. "Globally, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic saw a staggering year-over-year growth of accounts requested for government surveillance from 0.9 million to 1.3 million. This could be … [Read more...] about Government Data Requests Rise Globally