Facebook Gives More Data Requests to US Government Without Telling Its Users

Social networking giant Facebook has just published its recently updated biannual worldwide Government Requests Report revealing to public the percentage of requests containing non-disclosure orders from government entities.

As per the latest transparency report, around 60% of user date requests from the US government, particularly law enforcement agencies, contained a gag order which basically prevents the tech firm from publicly informing Facebook users that their information was being sought after by the government.

The report covers the second half of 2015 which showed that authorities have sought for Facebook's permission to access users' private data 46,763 times, posting a 13% rise from the first half of that same year.

How did Facebook respond to these enormous amount of government requests?

In a statement, the company weighs each request according to its legal sufficiency and noted that they only yielded some data to the government for 80% of those instances.

"Facebook does not provide any government with 'back doors' or direct access to people's data," Facebook's Deputy General Counsel Chris Sonderby mentioned in a statement as quoted by US News.

"If a request appears to be deficient or overly broad, we push back hard and will fight in court, if necessary."

In the report, Facebook also presented some cases where government requests involve restrictions or censorship on certain contents or materials being shared across its social media platform.

One particular case worth noting was the French government's legal request to block the circulation of a particular photo linked to the terrorist attacks in Paris as it purportedly violates 'human dignity'.

"We restricted access to more than 32,000 copies of the photo, in France only, in response to a legal request from the French government," Sonderby added, VentureBeat reported.

To allay public fears over the safety of their private data, the company reiterates its stance of safeguarding the interests of its users by not voluntarily giving in to government demands for private user information. Furthermore, the company said that it will continue to lobby for better laws that govern government access to information held by private sector entities. Just recently, Apple found itself in a bitter feud with the FBI over 'backdoor request' to gain access to one of the San Bernardino attackers' iPhone.

"To protect the information of the people that use our service, we will continue to apply a rigorous approach to every government request we receive," Sonderby said as per Tech Times report.