Facebook, the social media giant has reported that the government demands more and more user data that got spiked in the first half of 2015. The social network has seen this continual increase since it started revealing such data publicly two years ago. Government requests for account data and access to their personal data from telephone and web companies have become a controversial privacy concern since the former spy agency leaked covert surveillance programs.
Facebook said in a blog post on Wednesday that the Government requests for user account data globally jumped 18 percent in the first half of 2015 to 41,214 accounts, up from 35,051 requests in the second half of 2014. In the blog post, it reported that the amount of content restricted for disrupting local law more than doubled compared with the same period in the second half of 2014 to 20,568 pieces of content.
India Tops the List for Content Takedown Requests
Surprisingly, India made a large number of content restriction requests that reached a whopping 15,155 from Facebook in the first six months of 2015. According to the social network’s bi-annual Government Requests Report, India was followed by Turkey in the first half of the year, with 4,496 content removal requests and France with 295. The number of requests in January-June 2015 more than tripled from the previous six months when India made 5,832 requests.
India has topped the list for requesting more content removal requests from Facebook since the past two years. India ranked second, after the US, in making user data requests from Facebook this year. While the US made 17,577 requests, India requested data for user data 15,115 times. Facebook complied with 45.32% of the requests made from India.
“We restricted access in India to content reported primarily by law enforcement agencies and the India Computer Emergency Response Team within the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology because it was anti-religious and hate speech that could cause unrest and disharmony within India,” said Facebook on Indian Government Reports website.
France, Germany, and Britain also made up a large percentage of the requests and had far more content restricted in 2015. Facebook said that most of the government requests relate to criminal cases that include robberies or kidnappings. Often, Government requests basic subscriber information such as IP addresses or account content including people’s posts online.
On a total, Facebook saw a global increase in content restrictions and government requests for user data. The amount of content restricted for violating local law increased by whopping 112% compared to the second half of 2014. Facebook, Microsoft Corp, Yahoo Inc and Alphabet Inc, formerly Google, began publishing the details regarding the number of government requests for data they receive since last year.