Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Government Requests For Facebook User Data Up 27 Percent in First Half of 2016 (techcrunch.com)

Posted by msmash on from the affinity-for-data dept.

Facebook said Wednesday that government requests for user account data rose 27 percent in the first half of 2016, compared to the second half of last year, with U.S. law enforcement agencies topping the list. From a report on TechCrunch: According to the report, government requests for account data increased by 27 percent globally as compared with the last half of 2015. The number of requests grew from 46,710 to 59,229, Facebook said. The majority of the requests (56 percent) received from U.S. law enforcement contained a non-disclosure clause that prevented Facebook from notifying the user in question, the company noted. As with prior transparency reports, Facebook also detailed the number of content restriction requests -- that is, the requests from governments in response to postings that violate local laws. These actually decreased by 83 percent from 55,827 to 9,663. However, those figures don't point to a general decline in these sorts of requests from governments. Instead, the last cycle's numbers were elevated more than usual due to a sharp increase in requests related to a single image from the terrorist attacks in Paris last November.

19 comments

  1. Good by 110010001000 · · Score: 0

    Facebook already sells the data to anyone who pays, so the Government might as well get it too.

    1. Re:Good by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      I am waiting for Trump to being the jerbs back first.

    2. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is a logic fail. Your conclusion cannot be inferred from your premise.

    3. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I thought Facebook was InQTel anyway?

    4. Re:Good by haruchai · · Score: 1

      Sounds like there'll be lots of government jobs, especially for 'is Yugeness' version of Operation Wetback.
      But the GOP is supposed to be the small government party so I anticipate they'll struggle with than conundrum for a whole day before deciding on the font size of their rubber stamp.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  2. Beating a dead horse, I think at this point... by CaptnCrud · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The people who use facebook don't care and the people who do care don't use it.

    1. Re:Beating a dead horse, I think at this point... by EETech1 · · Score: 1

      I'll just leave this here... It's nearly 5 years old now, but still perfect.

      http://www.theonion.com/video/...

      Congress today reauthorized funding for Facebook, the massive online surveillance program run by the CIA,â said Onion Factzone anchor Brooke Alvarez.
      The sheer mass of data that people willingly display about themselves publicly is very, very likely being used by both the US government and foreign governments around the world to gather information about people of interest as well as to understand trends in the overall direction the world is heading. They can see political tendencies that could lead to actions and they can place associations between people through the network.
      Is Mark Zuckerberg really a CIA agent, codename âoeThe Overlordâ? One never knows.

    2. Re:Beating a dead horse, I think at this point... by gnick · · Score: 1

      The people who use facebook don't care and the people who do care don't use it.

      I'm not sure I agree with that. FB users have largely surrendered to having everything they've shared being passed along to advertisers, but the government is a whole different beast.

      I say that as a FB user who has accepted that my FB info will be used to focus ads, but would appreciate a notification if I'm being surveilled by the fed.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    3. Re:Beating a dead horse, I think at this point... by CaptnCrud · · Score: 1

      This is such a ridiculous argument, what stops the government from buying your stats from ad companies (a 3rd party dev shop most likely)? What are you going to do? Tell the government they can't buy information anyone else can buy?

      I just don't understand the logic of FB users.....you can't have it both ways.

    4. Re:Beating a dead horse, I think at this point... by gnick · · Score: 1

      ...what stops the government from buying your stats from ad companies (a 3rd party dev shop most likely)?

      Absolutely nothing. Saying I'd "appreciate a notification if I'm being surveilled" in no way implies that I expect one. We have to assume that the information that advertisers have is a subset of the information the government has. The difference comes in when the government starts requesting (demanding?) information beyond what the user has willingly shared. I assume that everything I tell FB is visible to everyone. It would just be nice if government requests for information on citizens was a little more transparent.

      Personally, I've been through the government clearance process. The info I got when I submitted a FOIA request was better than a hundred pages. There were interviews in there with people I went to high school with for god's sake. In my case, I assume they know absolutely everything. It's not paranoia once you have proof you're being watched.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    5. Re:Beating a dead horse, I think at this point... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't nominally have a Facebook account but I care because of the shadow profile of me they have likely built.

  3. Clearly FB users don't care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That FB shares user data with the government (and most likely 1000's of other groups) is now common knowledge.

    Users that do care (myself included in that group) don't use Facebook. But those who continue to, clearly don't care.

  4. Facebook users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't think they really care. I mean, they *intentionally* put all their personal information onto the internet.

  5. looking up slow browser on alphabet.com by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    mainly due to up to 30 scroll or mouse over videos on any given page? cease fire stand down... no bomb us more mom us... free the innocent stem cells...

  6. Policy by SeattleLawGuy · · Score: 1

    The people who use facebook don't care and the people who do care don't use it.

    Policy matters affect more than the people who care about them. Most people may not care about monetary policy unless you spend years educating them about it. Monetary policy decisions are still important and still affect them and their lives in profound ways that people who understand monetary policy should care about.

    --
    Real lawyers write in C++
  7. What about Facebook's info on non-members??? by knorthern+knight · · Score: 2

    Facebook collects info on everybody, members and non-members alike. https://yro.slashdot.org/story... Police love this. They legally can't maintain large databases on people "just in case". However, Facebook does it legally, and the police can always subpeona them for that info, members and non-members alike.

    --

    I'm not repeating myself
    I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user