Law enforcement increasingly asking Internet companies to share data
The fact that one can find out a lot about a person's interests, movements and opinions from their Facebook and Twitter accounts, Google searches and messages exchanged via messaging platforms has not been lost on law enforcement agencies worldwide.
Indeed, it would be surprising if these agencies chose not to try and access the information that can considerably speed up their investigation. So, the question is not whether they are doing it or not but whether they should be able to.
The issue was discussed at length at the Internet Governance Forum held in Nairobi, and things we already know were repeated for the umpteenth time. Yes, governments routinely ask Internet companies to share the data they have. In fact, "every decent-sized U.S. telecoms and Internet company has a team that does nothing but respond to requests for information," privacy activist and researcher Christopher Soghoian Soghoian told Reuters.
