MOSCOW, June 19 (RAPSI) - Google does not provide any US government agencies or any other country's agencies with direct access to its servers, and any statements to the contrary are false, Kommersant business daily reports on Wednesday, citing Google Russia chief executive Yulia Solovyova.
"We have indeed received government requests for customer data, which is in line with established procedure and the law," she told Kommersant. "It is important to understand that we may respond to requests, but we do not provide direct access to our servers. Moreover, we disclose the statistics of government requests in open reports and have recently requested the US authorities' clearance to publish statistics on national security related requests as well."
Edward Snowden dominated international headlines this month after claiming responsibility for having leaked top-secret documents to The Guardian, detailing the National Security Agency’s (NSA) capacity to access the systems of such major US companies as Google, Facebook, and Apple. Google, Facebook, and Apple have all denied having provided direct or backdoor access to their servers.
Lawmaker Ruslan Gattarov, who heads the Federation Council's information policy commission, said on Tuesday that Google has refused to attend the commission's meeting on the scandal that broke out after Snowden told the media that authorities tap directly into major Internet companies' servers.
Gattarov earlier called for an international inquiry into reports that Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter provide US special services with direct access to their user data. He said the commission would hold an open-door meeting, which would be followed by a probe by Russia's state communications agency, Roskomnadzor. Finally, Roskomnadzor will be initiating an international conference for all countries that have signed the international agreement on personal data protection, Gattarov said.