Global Government Requests for Facebook User Data Rise 27% for First Half of 2016
Global government requests to Facebook for user account data rose to 59,229 for the first half of 2016, up 27 percent from the second half of last year, said Deputy General Counsel Chris Sonderby in a Wednesday news release. U.S.…
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law enforcement made 23,854 requests, but most of those requests contained a nondisclosure order that prevented the website from notifying users, he said. "As for content restriction requests, the number of items restricted for violating local law decreased by 83% from 55,827 to 9,663," he said. "Last cycle’s figures had been elevated primarily by French content restrictions of a single image from the November 13, 2015 terrorist attacks" (see 1604280039). The report also includes, for the first time, information on requests from governments to preserve data, he said. These are records that won't be disclosed until Facebook gets a formal and valid legal process, wrote Sonderby, adding that the company received 38,675 preservation requests for 67,129 accounts. The social media service expanded reporting of emergency requests to include countries outside the U.S -- 3,016 requests for 4,192 accounts. It also said the U.S. government lifted a gag order for one national security letter received in the second half of 2015 due to transparency changes introduced this year by the USA Freedom Act.