Facebook Reveals A Rise In Government Data Requests

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Government requests for information about Facebook users increased nearly one-fourth from the final six months of 2013 to the first half of this year, representatives from the social media website revealed on Tuesday.
In a November 4 blog post, Facebook deputy general counsel Chris Sonderby said the website had received 34,946 requests for data from US and international government officials, an increase of approximately 24 percent since the last six-month period. Over that same period, the amount of content restricted because of local laws increased about 19 percent, he added.
“As we’ve said before, we scrutinize every government request we receive for legal sufficiency under our terms and the strict letter of the law, and push back hard when we find deficiencies or are served with overly broad requests,” Sonderby said. “Indeed, over the past year, we’ve challenged bulk search warrants issued by a court in New York that demanded we turn over nearly all data from the accounts of nearly 400 people.”
“This unprecedented request was by far the largest we’ve ever received,” he added. “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. Despite a setback in the lower court, we’re aggressively pursuing an appeal to a higher court to invalidate these sweeping warrants and to force the government to return the data it has seized.”
Sonderby said he expected that case to be decided by a New York appellate court later this year. He also said that Facebook would continue to work with others in the tech industry to push governments for increased transparency and to enact reform in online surveillance practices in order to rebuild consumer trust in the Internet.
“While we recognize that governments need to take action to protect their citizens’ safety and security, we believe all government data requests must be narrowly tailored, proportionate to the case in review, and subject to strict judicial oversight,” Sonderby said. “We will continue to work on our own and with partners, such as the Reform Government Surveillance coalition, to protect the information of the people who use our services.”
According to ZDNet reporter Rachel King, Facebook received 15,433 total requests for US authorities pertaining to about 23,667 accounts during the first half of 2014, responding with data to 80.15 percent of those queries. Search warrants were the most common type of those requests (7,676), with Facebook complying to 84.35 percent of them.
“While some believe Facebook is in bed with the spy agencies, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly insisted that the social network only gives up data its legally required to, and does not volunteer data or do anything to make its collections easier,” said Josh Constine of TechCrunch. “Facebook’s mission and business model both depend on users trusting it with their personal data, so few are so incentivized to fight to keep that data private.”
In September, Google reported a 15 percent sequential increase in the number of requests received during the first half of 2014, according to Reuters. The Mountain View, California-based company also reported a 150 percent increase in requests from governments throughout the world over the past five years, the news organization added.
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