Government requests to Facebook outlined in report

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Facebook's Global Government Requests Report, released on Tuesday for the first time, offered details on official requests from 74 countries.

The US made by far the most requests, asking for information on between 20,000 and 21,000 users.

UK authorities requested Facebook hand over data on 2,337 users.

"We will continue to be aggressive advocates for greater disclosure," Facebook said.

"We hope this report will be useful to our users in the ongoing debate about the proper standards for government requests for user information in official investigations," wrote Facebook lawyer Colin Stretch.

"And while we view this compilation as an important first report - it will not be our last."

Unlike other countries, which had an exact figure, the US data was given as a range due to it being forbidden for companies to disclose how many requests they have had.

"In coming reports, we hope to be able to provide even more information about the requests we receive from law enforcement authorities," Mr Stretch added.

The report covers the the first six months of 2013, ending 30 June, and is the first time Facebook has released data relating to these kind of requests.

The company said it hoped to publish similar reports every six months from now on, and hoped the report highlighted the "stringent processes" involved in the obtaining of user information.

The company did not give a break-down of why the requests were made, instead just dividing the data by country, outlining how many requests were made, and how many users were involved. Several users could be cited in one request.

Facebook also gave a percentage of how often the requests were successful.

In the UK, Facebook complied with 68%, while US authorities were successful 79% of the time.

Of particular interest were figures for countries affected by civil unrest.

In Turkey, 96 requests were made, covering 173 users, of which 45 were complied with - but the firm insisted this was for claims related to "child endangerment and emergency law enforcement".

No requests made by the Egyptian authorities were complied with, according to the report.


FULL LIST of Government requests made to Facebook



Read More: BBC News - Government requests to Facebook outlined in report

 

[SARAVANA RAMESH]

India ranks 2nd in seeking user info from Facebook, demands data on 4,144 users

New Delhi: Government agents in 74 countries demanded information on about 38,000 Facebook users in the first half of this year, with about half the orders coming from authorities in the United States, the company said Tuesday.

India accounted for 3,245 requests that asked for information on a total of 4,144 users. India has made the second highest number of government requests to Facebook for user information. Facebook provided information to Indian agencies for 50 per cent of the requests made.

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The social-networking giant is the latest technology company to release figures on how often governments seek information about its customers. Microsoft and Google have done the same.

As with the other companies, it's hard to discern much from Facebook's data, besides the fact that, as users around the globe flocked to the world's largest social network, police and intelligence agencies followed.

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"We fight many of these requests, pushing back when we find legal deficiencies and narrowing the scope of overly broad or vague requests," Colin Stretch, Facebook's general counsel company said in a blog post. "When we are required to comply with a particular request, we frequently share only basic user information, such as name."

Facebook and other technology companies have been criticized for helping the National Security Agency secretly collect data on customers. Federal law gives government the authority to demand data without specific warrants, and while companies can fight requests in secret court hearings, it's an uphill battle.

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Facebook turned over some data in response to about 60 per cent of those requests.

It's not clear from the Facebook data how many of the roughly 26,000 government requests on 38,000 users were for law-enforcement purposes and how many were for intelligence gathering.

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Technology and government officials have said criminal investigations are far more common than national security matters as a justification for demanding information from companies.

The numbers are imprecise because the federal government forbids companies from revealing how many times they've been ordered to turn over information about their customers. Facebook released only a range of figures for the United States.

The company said it planned to start releasing these figures regularly.

India ranks 2nd in seeking user info from Facebook, demands data on 4,144 users