Facebook revealed that it received data requests for more than 38,000 users from over 71 countries, with more than half the requests coming from the U.S. alone.
Facebook, one of the world's biggest social networking sites, claims that it thrives on the values of transparency and trust. To prove it lives true to its claim, the social networking site released a report revealing user information requests it received from over 74 countries.
The report covered requests it received in the first six months of 2013. It it was asked to reveal information about more than 37,954 accounts on Facebook.
"We hope this report will be useful to our users in the ongoing debate about the proper standards for government requests for user information in official investigations," the report read. "And while we view this compilation as an important first report - it will not be our last. In coming reports, we hope to be able to provide even more information about the requests we receive from law enforcement authorities."
The United States sought the most user information from Facebook: 12,000 requests for access to more than 20,000 accounts. Facebook said that it supplied data in roughly 79 percent of these cases.
The United Kingdom filed the second-most requests for data from Facebook: 1,975 requests from 2,337 user accounts. Facebook said it complied 68 percent of the time. France, Germany, India and Italy also made more than 1,000 requests during the first half of 2013.
"We fight many of these requests, pushing back when we find legal deficiencies and narrowing the scope of overly broad or vague requests" Colin Stretch, Facebook's general counsel, said on the company's website, according to Bloomberg. "When we are required to comply with a particular request, we frequently share only basic user information, such as a name."
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