Social networking giant Facebook on Wednesday revealed that it complied with 70 per cent of data requests from UK government while also revealing that global government requests for user information rose 24 per cent to almost 35,000 in the first six months of 2014.
According to the social networking giant’s latest transparency report, government request for users’ personal data rose to 34, 946 in the first six months of 2014, up 24 percent over the second half of 2013. During the same time, the amount of content restricted because of local laws went up to around 19 percent.
“Since our first report, we’ve seen an increase in government requests for data and for content restrictions,” the company said in a blog post on Tuesday.
UK accounted for around 2,110 user data demands in the first six months of this year as compared to 1,975 in the same period in 2013. Facebook said that it complied with around 70 percent of UK requests.
The US accounted for almost half of that total global request number at 15,433 followed by India with 4,559 requests and Germany with 2, 537 requests.
“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. We’re grateful for the support of others in industry and civil society who’ve filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of our fight,” Facebook noted in its blog post.
“We expect the case to be decided by a New York appellate court later this year, and we look forward to updating you on the results of this important case.”
In September, Google reported it had received about 32,000 data requests from governments across the world in the first half of 2014, 15 percent more than in the latter half of 2013.
