Govt surveying 371 Facebook accounts

The government in 241 requests sought information about 371 Facebook accounts to the social media authorities in the past six months, January to June period, said Facebook Global Government Requests Report released on Thursday.

Among the requests, 142 were on legal grounds and 99 emergency requests.

The social media authorities in 44 per cent case ‘produced some data’ against a total of 371 requests. Among those, it provided the government with data against 57 per cent legal requests and 25 per cent emergency requests.

In the same period in 2019, the government sought information of 123 users or accounts-related data in 95 requests.

Of those, the Facebook authorities provided them with data against 20 per cent legal requests and 48 per cent emergency requests.

In the July-December period 2019, it placed 179 requests seeking 298 users or accounts-related information.

Against the requests, facebook provided the government with data in 45 per cent of the cases.

‘Facebook responds to government requests for data in accordance with applicable law and our terms of service,’ Facebook in its report said.

‘Each and every request we receive is carefully reviewed for legal sufficiency and we may reject or require greater specificity on requests that appear overly broad or vague,’ it said.