A surge has been recorded in the number of requests sent to Facebook by the Indian government seeking information on user accounts, The Indian Express has reported.
According to a report released by Facebook on November 15, the number of Facebook accounts in India have increased by an estimated 63 percent since 2015. The report added that there is a three-fold spike in the number of government requests for information and user accounts.
While the social media platform hasn’t specified the kind of “information” sought by the government, sources told the newspaper that this usually relates to data used for law enforcement.
The Facebook report pointed out that the Indian government steadily increased the number of information requests, which went up by almost 68 percent between January and June this year compared to the same period last year.
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According to the report, the request for information increased from a mere eight in the first six months of 2013 to a whopping 16,580 in the first half of 2018. Likewise, the request for access to user accounts jumped from 4,144 in the first half of 2013 to 23,047 in the first half of 2018.
Usually, data requests to a US-based company have to be routed through the US Department of Justice under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) guidelines. But, ‘emergency’ requests can be sent directly to Facebook, through its ‘law enforcement online request system’.
“In emergencies, law (agencies) may submit requests without legal process. Based on the circumstances, we may voluntarily disclose information to law enforcement (agencies), where we have a good faith reason to believe that the matter involves imminent risk of serious physical injury or death,” the newspaper cited the Facebook report as saying.
There were 1,615 emergency requests in the first half of 2019, as compared to 861 in the second half of 2018. In all, there were 1,478 ‘emergency’ requests last year, more than a three-fold jump from 460 in 2017. Besides, in 2016, not even 1 per cent of government requests to Facebook bypassed the usual procedure; now, about 7 per cent of the total requests for data take this ‘emergency’ route.
The Facebook report also points out that on the global scale, India is second only after the United States, for the most number of account information requests.
It is to be noted that the Centre has steadily decreased its requests for content to be taken off Facebook. The report suggested that most takedown requests were related to hate speech, religion, or anti-state defamation.
The requests for taking down content peaked in 2015 with over 30,000 requests, but have since reduced significantly to 3,500. In 2013, India topped the list of most content takedown requests, but now is rank 7, the lowest position the country has held so far.
As far as compliance with these requests is concerned, Facebook has complied almost half the time. However, the report points out, that Facebook’s compliance has decreased over the years. In 2013, India remained in the top 20, globally, vis-à-vis Facebook’s compliance; now it ranks at the 70th place.
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