Facebook, Google, and Microsoft deny collaboration with the US.

Pedro Peduzzi
Reporter from Agência Brasil

Brasilia - Representatives from Google, Microsoft and Facebook denied today (15), in the Senate, that the companies gave the United States government "unrestricted" or "large-scale" access to their customers' information. They participated in a public hearing to discuss allegations of US espionage on emails and phone calls of Brazilians.

"Until the end of last year, 0,00002% [of the information requested from Facebook] was requested by US authorities of any level, whether federal or state, [which ranges] from detectives looking for missing children and robberies to national security issues," said Facebook's Government Relations Manager in Brazil, Bruno Magrani. "There was no large-scale access," he added.

Similar positions were presented by the Director of Public Policy at Google Brazil, Marcel Leonardi, and the General Director of Legal and Institutional Relations at Microsoft Brazil, Alexandre Esper.

Leonardi said that Google did not participate in any US government spying program and that the company does not allow the installation of government equipment for security purposes. "There is no mechanism to access this information, despite several countries suggesting it. No one can get this data from our company," he assured. "We act only in accordance with the law. [Therefore,] many times these requests are denied. And when we are obliged to, [the information] is handed over to the authorities."

The Google director added that if he had permission from the US government to publish the number of requests involving that country's national security, people would conclude that "compliance falls short of the widespread claims made in the press," and that what generates suspicion is precisely the lack of transparency about how these requests are made.

The Microsoft director stated that, since July 16th, the company has requested permission from the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to widely disclose the data, but has not yet received authorization. "The privacy and security of our users are protected, and we do not offer unrestricted access to customer data to any authority. What the media wrote, it based on facts, but these are perceptions or impressions. That is not how the company operates," said Esper.

In a public hearing held last week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, journalist Glenn Greenwald, from the British newspaper The Guardian, denounced that the monitoring of electronic communications by the US, under the guise of combating terrorism, was actually aimed at obtaining privileged information relating to economic agreements, political strategies and industrial competitiveness of other countries.

Edited by: Davi Oliveira