Google on Wednesday handed over data stored by suspected pedophiles on its Orkut social networking site to Brazilian authorities, ceding to pressure to lift its vow of confidentiality to its users, officials said.

The US Internet giant delivered 3,261 files to a Brazilian senate commission looking into allegations that illegal images of minors were posted in password-protected photo albums on the site.

Orkut is the most popular web destination for Brazilians, far outstripping rivals Facebook and MySpace in the country in terms of popularity and activity. It counts around 27 million members.

A member of the senate commission, Demostenes Torres, told Globo television that it was "the first time" Google had accepted to divulge the contents or Orkut users.

He stressed that Brazilian officials had received 50,000 allegations of pedophilia in recent years, and that Orkut was suspected of being an online gathering point for sexual predators of children.

Torres said he believed Google's data would incriminate around 200 pedophiles.

"They are exchanging telephone numbers, names of possible victims, the situations in which they live" as well as photos, the senator said.

He added that Google would be meeting with police and other officials later Wednesday to talk over a strategy that would systematically expose pedophiles using Orkut to prosecution in Brazil.

"If we manage to do this, it will be a hard blow against pedophiles," Torres said.

The state prosecutor for Sao Paulo, Sergio Suiama, last month said 90 percent of the 56,000 pedophilia allegations received in the past few years related to Orkut.

Authorities had threatened Google with criminal and civil lawsuits if it did not comply with opening the private online photo albums of users under suspicion.