Load more posts 47 MINS AGO DIGITS Facebook Fends Off More Foreign Data Requests Than Domestic By Elizabeth Dwoskin AP Every year, Facebook gets thousands of requests from governments for access to its users’ data. According to a new company report, the tech giant has an easier time fending off requests from foreign governments than from U.S. law enforcement agencies. The report, published Tuesday on the company’s website and accessible to anyone with a Facebook account, lists, for the first time, the number of requests the company receives from foreign countries and the number of Facebook accounts that they asked to access. During the first half of this year, 70 countries asked for the account information for 17,940 Facebook users. The government that made by far the most requests for Facebook’s data is the U.S., which issued 11,000-12,000 requests for information on 20,000-21,000 Facebook accounts in the first six months of this year. After the U.S., the countries that made the most requests were India (3,245 requests), followed by the United Kingdom (1,975 requests) and Germany (1,886 requests). The total number of requests Facebook received from countries outside the U.S. is 14,607. Facebook supplied some user information to U.S. authorities in 79 % of cases. In each case in which information was provided, the company says it was legally obliged to do so. Foreign governments had less success getting user data from Facebook: Of the five countries that each made over 1,000 requests for Facebook’s user data – India, the U.K., Germany, France, and Italy – the company provided the data in only 49 percent of cases. The requests range from national security concerns to defamation cases to run-of-the-mill queries from local police forces. Facebook doesn’t break down the requests by type, and is prohibited by U.S. law from detailing how many of these requests relate to national security. Tech companies are required to give information to foreign governments because the U.S. has inked legal agreements with dozens of countries that allow for data sharing for law enforcement purposes. Facebook spokeswoman Sarah Feinberg says that if Facebook complies with fewer requests from a country, “it’s likely to mean that a country is not able to meet our high legal bar and standards.” Says Feinberg: “We lay out incredibly clearly the guidelines that have to be met in order for us to turn over any data whatsoever regarding an account.” Another takeaway from the Facebook report: One country that has criticized the U.S. spying program has apparently made extensive use of data-sharing treaties. In a visit to Brazil earlier this month, the country’s top diplomat chastised U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry over the surveillance program, saying that allegations of the U.S. spying on Brazilian citizens cast a “shadow of distrust” between the two countries. Brazil requested user data from Facebook 715 times in the first six months of the year.
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 01:02:43 +0000
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