Government Requests For User Data Up By 24%, According To Facebook

You would think that after the Snowden reports about governments spying on their citizens that perhaps these governments would be a little more careful about their requests on user information. However if anything it seems like the contrary would be true. According to Facebook’s latest transparency report (via CNET), it has been revealed that government requests have actually increased by 24%.

Their report has revealed that they have received closed to 35,000 requests for user data during the first 6 months of 2014 which is a 24% uptick from the second half of 2013.  According to Facebook’s deputy general counsel Chris Sonderby, the social network pushes back hard against any and all requests before handing any data over.

Sonderby also revealed that Facebook challenges bulk search warrants, especially a recent one which requested for data to be handed over for 400 accounts. He notes, “We’ve argued that these overly broad warrants violate the privacy rights of the people on Facebook and ignore constitutional safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

If anything, Facebook’s uptick on government requests seems to be in line with a recent report from Google’s own transparency report. A couple of months ago, the search giant revealed that worldwide government requests for data saw an increase of 150% since five years ago.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Web
Tags: Facebook