Government requests to Facebook are primarily based on cases that involve legal matters, relevant to criminal cases and even potentially sensitive aspects of state secrecy.
Recently, Facebook revealed government requests that it had received during the first half of 2017 along with the nature and number of them. The information on Pakistan appears to be very interesting.
Data Requests
The frequency of data requests from Pakistan’s government to Facebook was not at all low. In fact, the requests have increased since last year, which can be checked out here. The number of requests made last year from January till June were 719.
This year, the figures include a total of 1050 requests, increasing by 46% over last year. Of these, eleven were emergency requests involving twenty eight user accounts and Facebook responded to 27%. The remaining 1039 requests involved 1512 accounts and 63% were responded to.
Preservation Requests
Additionally, requests for preservation of investigation in criminal cases amounted to 399, with the involvement of 613 user accounts. Facebook does not comment on the percentage of response to these requests.
Content Restriction
A third category of Pakistan’s governmental requests to Facebook is that of content restrictions, in which 177 pieces of content are said to have been restricted at the request of the PTA and Federal Investigation Agency.
It could be because of the blasphemy law developments earlier this year, but it could also be based on other political motives. We can’t say for sure.
The closing category of Facebook’s interactions with the Pakistan government’s requests bluntly speaks out the figure “one” for an Internet disruption affecting Facebook access back in January.
And an Internet Disruption
We suppose it’s nice to learn that our government corresponds with Facebook on a regular basis, though what exactly these figures could mean is still a matter of a state secrecy and has not yet been made public.
