Reuters: Facebook says government requests for account data rise 27%

Facebook Inc said on Wednesday that government requests for user account data rose 27% in the first half of 2016 compared to the second half of last year, with U.S. law enforcement agencies topping the list, according to Reuters.

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Government requests for account data globally rose to 59,229 from 46,710 and more than half contained a non-disclosure order that prohibited the social networking website from notifying users, Reuters said.

Requests for content restriction, the number of items restricted for violating local laws, decreased by 83% from the second half of 2015, Facebook said in a blog post.

Read alsoWSJ: Paris attacks fan encryption debateThe Paris attacks in November last year elevated the number of content restriction requests.

Facebook for the first time provided information about government requests to preserve relevant user account information.

The company received 38,675 preservation requests for 67,129 accounts.

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