Facebook, Microsoft disclose little on national security requests
Facebook and Microsoft each fielded thousands of requests for user data as part of law enforcement investigations from U.S. authorities in the second half of last year, they said late Friday.
Some of those investigations might have been related to national security -- but perhaps not. While the companies are for the first time allowed to include national security requests in the numbers, Facebook and Microsoft are still not permitted to say whether any are actually included. The companies disclosed the figures in corporate blog posts. Facebook said it had received between 9,000 and 10,000 requests while Microsoft said it had gotten between 6,000 and 7,000 requests.
The release of data was, said Facebook, the result of week-long discussions with the U.S. government after allegations published in The Guardian and The Washington Post said the National Security Agency had "direct access" to the servers of major Internet companies. Facebook said it pushed the government for permission to release more information about the requests related to national security -- which until now it had been forbidden from acknowledging.
