Facebook releases report on government requests

Facebook on Tuesday released its first report showing the number of requests about its users that it has received from government agencies around the world.

The numbers show about 26,000 government requests for information about 38,000 users in the first six months of 2013, with half of the orders coming from the United States government. Facebook did not honor all of the requests from countries around the world. It said it complied to some extent with 79 percent of the 11,000-12,000 requests it received from American agencies and it required governments to meet a "very high legal bar" to receive the information.

"We fight many of these requests, pushing back when we find legal deficiencies and narrowing the scope of overly broad or vague requests," Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch said Tuesday. "When we are required to comply with a particular request, we frequently share only basic user information, such as name."

Microsoft and Google have also issued reports about the government requests for information they have received. Facebook said it planned to continue releasing these reports in the future.

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