Damn! Facebook ain’t playing!
The social network shared some details Friday night about how frequently it receives government requests for information.
The company posted on their press website that between June and December 2012, US government entities filed 9,000 to 10,000 request for users’ information.
And in those requests, the government sought information on a total of between 18,000 and 19,000 user accounts. According to the statement, Facebook has more than 1.1 billion monthly active users.
The statement says:
We’ve reiterated in recent days that we scrutinize every government data request that we receive – whether from state, local, federal, or foreign governments. We’ve also made clear that we aggressively protect our users’ data when confronted with such requests: we frequently reject such requests outright, or require the government to substantially scale down its requests, or simply give the government much less data than it has requested. And we respond only as required by law.
But particularly in light of continued confusion and inaccurate reporting related to this issue, we’ve advocated for the ability to say even more.
Since this story was first reported, we’ve been in discussions with U.S. national security authorities urging them to allow more transparency and flexibility around national security-related orders we are required to comply with. We’re pleased that as a result of our discussions, we can now include in a transparency report all U.S. national security-related requests (including FISA as well as National Security Letters) – which until now no company has been permitted to do. As of today, the government will only authorize us to communicate about these numbers in aggregate, and as a range. This is progress, but we’re continuing to push for even more transparency, so that our users around the world can understand how infrequently we are asked to provide user data on national security grounds.
Just recently Mark Zuckerberg denied claims that the social network is part of a secret NSA data-sharing program. It looks like Facebook is not going to let this one slide.
SOURCE: Huffington Post
