"The new fees could help recover some of the costs required to fill such a large volume of legal requests, said Al Gidari, a lawyer who for years represented Google and other technology and telecommunications companies. The requests have also grown more complicated as tech companies have acquired more data and law enforcement has become more technologically sophisticated.
“None of the services were designed with exfiltrating data for law enforcement in mind,” said Mr. Gidari, who is now the consulting privacy director at Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society.
Mr. Gidari also said it was good that the fees might result in fewer legal requests to the company. “The actual costs of doing wiretaps and responding to search warrants is high, and when you pass those costs on to the government, it deters from excessive surveillance,” he said."
- Date Published:01/24/2020
- Original Publication:The New York Times