
Global Government Requests Report - r0h1n
https://www.facebook.com/about/government_requests
======
Cowen
Facebook's hands are probably tied on some of their reporting here, but
there's still some interesting stuff about the US in this report.

1\. The US is by far the one requesting the most data. I'd have to run the
numbers to be sure, but it looks like even controlling for population and
number of FB users, the US is definitely outpacing other countries' data
requests.

2\. The US is the only country where FB is reporting in ranges instead of
precise numbers. There could be several reasons for this, but the reason
almost certainly is not that they don't know the precise numbers. NSLs seem
like a safe bet here.

3\. The US also has one of the highest "success" rates of government requests.
79% of government requests yield some data. This again could be interpreted
several ways, but the two most enticing ones are that the US isn't sending a
lot of fishing requests because when they request data from FB, they're
already pretty certain about what they're looking to find. The more disturbing
concern would be if the US only queries FB for things where the NSA's database
is insufficient, which would mean the number of requests they submit to
Facebook is not at all indicative of how many queries on user data they
actually do.

EDIT: Here's a quick Gist I made of this report as a CSV.
[https://gist.github.com/Cowen/adb2d335862a95870773](https://gist.github.com/Cowen/adb2d335862a95870773)

~~~
sgrenfro
Re: #2. Basically correct. Reporting a range that includes all requests,
including those that can't be disclosed individually, is the best outcome
we've been able to negotiate so far. Here's the answer in the FAQ:

Why did you report the numbers for the United States in ranges?

We have reported the numbers for all criminal and national security requests
to the maximum extent permitted by law. We continue to push the United States
government to allow more transparency regarding these requests, including
specific numbers and types of national security-related requests. We will
publish updated information for the United States as soon as we obtain legal
authorization to do so.

~~~
Cowen
I didn't even see that part of the FAQ. That makes sense.

Thanks for making this. It's definitely better to have some data than none.

~~~
quantumpotato_
What confidence to we have that this data is true?

Is this something that could be verified with homomorphic encryption?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption)

~~~
schoen
No. If users send unencrypted data to a service provider, they can never use
technical means to verify what the service provider does with the data. For
example, suppose that some category of user data is automatically printed out
on paper every night.

~~~
quantumpotato_
Right, of course. Thanks.

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mherdeg
In case anyone is curious why there's a comment about the headline, the
original headline was ""Facebook's "Transparency Report" cannot be viewed
without a Facebook account"" and the new headline is "Facebook's Transparency
Report".

------
sgrenfro
I'm a software engineer at Facebook. Requiring login for this page was a
simple oversight and should be fixed sometime this evening California time.
Sorry for the confusion.

~~~
rhizome
How does requiring 8-10 hours for this comport with "move fast and break
things?"

~~~
freehunter
1) Could be propagation time to their CDNs.

2) Could be the next time available in their schedule to make this change.

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casca
This is not a transparency report. The title on the Facebook page is far more
accurate: Global Government Requests Report

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ryguytilidie
This isn't very interesting data because I have to have a shred of trust in
someone to think the data they've presented is accurate.

~~~
waylonrobert
What reason do you have to believe it's inaccurate? What would Facebook gain
by posting juked numbers of government requests? Seems pretty honest to me.
We'll see if they stay true to their promise to scale deeper and show what
kinds of requests they receive.

~~~
npaquin
lol.

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grecy
Some interesting ones jump out at me.

Hong Kong: 1 user, 100% hit rate. Iceland: 1 user, 100% hit rate.

I wonder who could have been logging into Facebook from those countries?

Russia: 1 user, 0% hit rate.

I wonder if this is for the same user I'm alluding to above, and if Russia has
a firmer stance.

Of course, it's all wild speculation.

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hglaser
This is a great step. The analogous Google page seems to be here:
[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/co...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/countries/?t=table)

Can anyone confirm that these include National Security Letters?

CSV export would be nice. I immediately wanted to compute requests per capita
by country.

~~~
eterm
That is the page for removal requests.

This is the page for user data requests:

[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/)

~~~
hglaser
Thank you, edited.

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barretts
My initial reaction to this headline was, "Orwellian doublespeak at its best,"
which is of course the hoped-for response.

On second thought, I don't see why this matters. Facebook transparency matters
only to Facebook account holders. And it's free to create an account if you
don't have one.

Getting mad over this would be like getting mad when the government releases
electronic data sets, which of course means you have to have a computer (and
computer savviness) to access them.

~~~
uptown
"Facebook transparency matters only to Facebook account holders."

Facebook transparency likely also matters to anybody with a "shadow profile".
Even if you don't have an account, any friend who has synced their phone's
phonebook containing your information to Facebook's servers has established a
profile of you which Facebook then has a responsibility to maintain in a
responsible manner.

------
o0-0o
21,000 Users Impacted in the US 47 in Pakistan

Gentlemen of Facebook and NSA - you are going about this backwards, and we're
onto you.

~~~
GHFigs
_21,000 Users Impacted in the US_

The report does not tell you the country of the user accounts impacted, only
the origin of the request.

~~~
mpyne
It also doesn't tell you _which_ US Federal, state, or local agency made the
request, or whether the request was for simple criminal investigation or for
"national security" purposes, both of which are detailed in the FAQ. ;)

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prehkugler
Seems like everyone is discussing "wow, there is a report; it's from Facebook,
so it can't be true" instead of "wow the US govt has made ~5x requests of the
next-largest requestor."

Edit: see Cowen's comment on contents of the report.

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GHFigs
Note that this includes all requests from local, state, and any federal
agency, for any data. It also only tells you the country of origin for the
request, not the country of the user for which data was requested.

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djvv
Where is China?

~~~
omarali
Facebook is blocked in China.

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markdown
There are no Pacific Island countries on the list other than Australia and New
Zealand.

Lack of technical competency?

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mr_spothawk
"Big Brother likes your post."

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antonwinter
take away lesson the more 'democratic' a country = government wants to know a
lot about you

thats if democracy isn't a myth

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niuzeta
Big Brother says: _" Big brother loves you"_

