Deutsche Welle, 27 August 2013
Governments
around the world issued around 25,000 requests for information about Facebook
users in the first half of this year. Facebook has published its first report
on the matter; Washington fielded the most requests.
Released on
Tuesday, the report showed 71 countries had made more than 25,000 data requests
affecting around 38,000 people. Facebook received between 11,000 and 12,000
requests from the US, with India (3245), the United Kingdom (1975) and Germany
(1886) others to feature prominently.
The
reasoning offered to justify the requests included “both criminal and national
security," Facebook said via a statement. The report said at least some
data was released in 79 percent of US data requests and around 60 percent
overall.
"We
fight many of these requests, pushing back when we find legal deficiencies and
narrowing the scope of overly broad or vague requests," the site's general
counsel Colin Stretch 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."
Stretch
continued by stating “transparency and trust are core values at Facebook,"
but the website is still prohibited by law from disclosing specific information
about the requests it had received from the US government.
It is the
latest technology firm to release such a report, following in the footsteps of
Google, Microsoft and Twitter.
This comes
after the National Security Agency (NSA) scandal that broke in June, in which
documents provided by the US intelligence agency's former system administrator
Edward Snowden were published by The Guardian and The Washington Post.
The
documents detailed surveillance and data collection by the NSA around the world
via complex programs and initiatives. The NSA is the foreign intelligence
service for the US.
Germany was
the European Union's most-targeted nation, with German security agencies
accused of sending intercepted data to the NSA.
ph/msh (AFP, AP)
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