Facebook Supplies Governments with Data Regarding Users

by William White | August 27, 2013 3:08 pm

Facebook185[1]Facebook (FB[2]), released a report on Tuesday[3], that covers request from 74 countries for data regarding at least 38,000 of its users.

The report includes information on every request made by governments from January through June of 2013. The report includes request made by governments for security reasons and for criminal cases. Facebook says that when it came to criminal cases, it was sometimes asked to provide information to authorities such as names, length or service and IP addresses. The United States made the most request for Facebook users’ information. The United States made 11,000 to 12,000 request regarding access to information related to over 20,00 accounts. Facebook claims that it supplied data for about 79% of those request. The United States only allows Facebook to give out the ranges of number of request made by the government, reports The Washington Post.

“We continue to push the United States government to allow more transparency regarding these requests, including specific numbers and types of national security-related requests,” reads Facebook’s report[4]. “We will publish updated information for the United States as soon as we obtain legal authorization to do so.”

Facebook says that it plans to release reports like this regularly.

FB shares were down more than 3% as of Tuesday evening.

Endnotes:

  1. [Image]: https://investorplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Facebook185.jpg
  2. FB: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=FB
  3. released a report on Tuesday: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/facebook-releases-first-report-on-world-governments-data-requests/2013/08/27/40e2d396-0f24-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html
  4. reads Facebook’s report: https://www.facebook.com/about/government_requests

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2013/08/facebook-supplies-governments-with-data-regarding-users/