31 Aug 2017, 4:55 pm
The professional services firm said it looked at the number of requests for data that 26 technology, media and telecoms companies had received from the US and UK governments and found that, on average, each company had received 13,653 such requests in 2013 and 27,103 in 2016. Facebook, Google, Twitter and Yahoo were among the companies Deloitte looked at.
The volume of requests made presents a challenge to those business, despite their "size and capability", said Peter Robinson, head of Deloitte’s electronic discovery unit.
"These requests can cover a mixture of criminal activities from white collar crime such as money-laundering, to counter-terrorism investigations, and more common crimes such as robbery," Robinson said. "The request could be as complex as asking for all the audio, email, social media and instant messenger information on a major investigation through to a simple spreadsheet. Getting organised requires knowing precisely what data is held and where, attempting to respond to these requests in an ad hoc manner is how firms come unstuck."
Deloitte said the technology companies respond to just under 80% of requests for data they receive, on average.