#Technology: Your Company’s Emails & Consumer Data

Last year the U.S. government demanded Google serve up data on its users over 31,000 times. Almost all requests were delivered and warrants for the information were rare.

Google warns that it has seen a 70% increase in this activity and admits it has complied with requests for emails and search data in 88% of cases.

We all want to stop criminals and predators and should help fight back against cyber warfare, but there is no question that this trend is a little unnerving and a minefield of liability for businesses. You don’t want to be sued by your users for giving out their information. You want consumers to trust you and you want to keep your own information private, but it’s not easy.

Obama has announced the reintroduction of CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act). This is aimed at protecting companies when having to provide information on their customers and traffic.

Of course the fear is real time, and involves constant surveillance of all online activity and communication. This might be fine most of the time if you are doing nothing wrong, unless of course someone hacks your accounts or uses your Internet connection.

As a business owner the bottom line is that whether CISPA passes or not, you are going to be forced to give it up. CISPA just covers your backside from lawsuits. Still you might want to begin thinking about other channels for sending any critical information you don’t want read on the web. Consider either going offline or via military grade encryption for file sharing, SMS and calls via laptops and mobile phones, for both personal and business calls coming over toll free lines.