India / facebook received 40300 requests from Indian government for user data says new transperency report

Social media company Facebook has said in its latest transparency report that the Indian government had asked for data of 40 thousand 300 users in the last 6 months of the year 2020. It has been reported in the report that the requests from the Government of India saw an increase of 13.3% from January to June 2020. During this time, India had asked for data of 35 thousand 560 users.

American company Facebook also banned 878 items from July to December 2020, according to instructions from the Ministry of Information Broadcasting of India. 10 of these items were banned for some time.

According to the report, India sent a total of 40 thousand 300 requests between July and December 2020. Of these, 37 thousand 865 requests were legal process and 2 thousand 435 requests were emergency disclosures. However, India is at the second place among the users with the highest number of requests for data. The first number is the United States, which asked for data of a total of 61 thousand 262 users between July-December 2020.

The report also stated that there has been a 10% increase in the number of users' data sought from governments around the world within the second half as compared to the first half of the year 2020. In the first half, where the governments of the world together had asked for the data of 1 lakh 73 thousand 592 users from Facebook, in the second half the figure had reached 1 lakh 91 thousand 13. Data related to 62,754 users / accounts was sought in India and in 52% of cases some data was presented.

The report said, "Facebook responds to requests from the government to get data according to the relevant laws and its terms of service. Every request we receive is reviewed carefully and the request that seems a little vague, we either reject it or more information is asked on it.