Earlier this week, Amazon released a transparency report which revealed that government requests for user data increased by 800% between the first and second half of 2020. The company reportedly processed over 3,000 demands within the first six months of 2020 and over 27,000 in the second six months. Nearly half of the requests came from the German government, with Amazon turning over user data in 52 cases overall. Amazon did not attribute the spike to any cause in particular. Requests for Amazon Web Services data are received and processed separately.
In the last few years, there has been an uptick in account takeovers on social media. Amazon isn’t the only company being pried for information from international governments and battling new-era security threats. Zoom, a video conferencing app that became wildly popular as the Covid-19 pandemic encouraged a shift to telework, experienced a plethora of moderation and security risks in 2020.
Read More: Government Demands for Amazon Data Shot Up 800 Percent in 2020