‘Phl gov’t requested data of 42 Facebook users’

The Philippine government has requested data of 42 Facebook users and accounts in the first half of 2018, the social media company revealed yesterday.

Facebook, in its bi-annual transparency report on government data requests, said it has produced data for 48 percent of the requests it received.

It did not identify the specific accounts covered by the data requests, which were part of 31 legal and emergency requests that the company received from January to June this year.

Nine of the requests were legal in nature, while 22 were classified as “emergency requests” or those that supposedly involve imminent risk of serious physical injury or death.

The number of government requests slightly went down from the 36 that Facebook received in the second half of last year. It was higher than the 22 requests received in the same period in 2017.

Meanwhile, the percentage of requests that were granted increased from 41 and 44 in the first and second halves of last year, respectively.

In addition to user data requests, Facebook also received 135 “preservation requests” from the government, covering a total of 189 accounts in the first half of 2018.

The company allows preservation of account information pending official investigation.

“When we receive a preservation request, we will preserve a temporary snapshot of the relevant account information but will not disclose any of the preserved records unless and until we receive formal and valid legal process,” Facebook said.

Last year, the government requested the preservation of 137 accounts in the first half and 178 in the second.

The company said it has also restricted one item in response to private reports related to defamation, as well as monitored a deliberate internet disruption in the country during the period, specifically on Jan. 9 during the Feast of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo.

Requests rise

Facebook’s vice president and deputy general counsel Chris Sonderby said they have monitored an increase in the number of government requests worldwide, from 82,341 in the second half of last year to 103,815 in the first half of this year.

The percentage of requests in which some data were released slightly went down, from 74.8 percent to 74.

“Maintaining transparency around the nature and extent of the government requests we receive for user data, and how we make decisions about what content stays up or what comes down on Facebook, is really important to us,” he said.

“We always scrutinize each government request we receive for account data to make sure it is legally valid. If a request appears to be deficient or overly broad, we push back, and will fight in court, if necessary,” Sonderby added.