It’s probably not a surprise that the United States government puts in data requests to Facebook. The same is happening with other social media sites as well. The United States government often asks companies that keep large amounts of data for that data. Most of the time this happens the government has some sort of warrant or subpoena for the information from a court. Facebook even admits that the vast majority of these requests relate to criminal cases.
While that may be the case, it still makes many users uncomfortable that the United States government asks private companies for any data period. Facebook says that they received 32,716 requests for account data from the U.S. government in the first half of 2017. That’s an increase from the 26,014 in the prior 6 months. Facebook says they did produce some of the data requested for 85% of those cases but not all of the data. The types of data requested included, account information, IP addresses, logs, and the account’s content.
“We continue to carefully scrutinize each request we receive for account data — whether from an authority in the U.S., Europe, or elsewhere — to make sure it is legally sufficient,” explained Chris Sonderby, Facebook’s deputy general counsel, in a statement. “If a request appears to be deficient or overly broad, we push back, and will fight in court, if necessary.”
“We’ll also keep working with partners in industry and civil society to encourage governments around the world to reform surveillance in a way that protects their citizens’ safety and security while respecting their rights and freedoms,” he added.
What do you think of the government requesting user data from Facebook and other social media sites? Does it concern you? Or are you OK with it? Let us know in the comments below, or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
[button link=”http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/12/20/us-government-is-asking-facebook-for-more-and-more-data-on-its-users.html” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Fox News[/button]
