Governments should codify rules on data collection, Google urges

Governments must codify regulations on silent data gathering so internet users around the world can regain confidence in the web, Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond, has said.

Drummond also forcefully reiterated the company's position that it has not given the US National Security Agency (NSA) access to its servers, and that it had not known of the Prism programme before it was revealed last week.

He said the company would continue to push to be able to publish more information about secret requests for data. "But we don't write the laws," he said.

In a Q&A session for The Guardian, Drummond said: "It's high time that governments get together and decide some rules around [secret data gathering]. Remember that this is not just about the US government, but European and other governments too. It's really important that all of us give close scrutiny to any laws that give governments increased power to sift through user data."

He reiterated Google's position on Prism: "We're not in cahoots with the NSA and there is no government programme that Google participates in that allows the kind of access that the media originally reported."

A PowerPoint presentation from the NSA suggested that it had "direct" access to the systems of nine companies - Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, Apple, Skype, PalTalk, YouTube, Facebook and Google. The companies have denied allowing such access. Google has said it did provide a secure file transfer system for data requested by the NSA under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) orders, which are secret.