Tech companies endure near-doubling of requests for personal data

Aliya Ram:

The US and UK governments have almost doubled their requests to obtain data from technology, media and telecoms companies over the past three years, highlighting a growing regulatory burden for businesses that are preparing for many more requests, under tough new EU privacy rules.

The number of times 26 companies — including AOL, AT&T, Facebook, Google and LinkedIn — were asked to assist the UK and US governments with investigations in 2016 increased to 704,678, up from just 354,970 three years previously, according to an analysis of public data by Deloitte, the consultancy.

The surge will vindicate claims from some companies that they face an impossible task in dealing with requests for information. Technology groups have warned that this challenge will increase dramatically under the General Data Protection Regulation, which will give EU citizens more rights over their data.

“You’ve gone from a situation 15 to 20 years ago where these requests were few and far between but, over time, the number of requests has increased and alongside that the variety of requests,” said Peter Robinson, partner at Deloitte. “Dealing with them is quite time-consuming, risky and expensive.”