Access by states in the region to Meta user data

2023-06-26 07:37:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Of all the countries of the Western Balkans, Serbia sends the most requests to the company Meta to obtain information related to the data of users of the social networks Facebook and Instagram, according to the latest data.

Since 2013, Meta, the parent company of social networks Facebook and Instagram, has published transparency reports on its website every six months, which also include requests made by state institutions for data sharing.

States are seeking data from Meta as part of official investigations. Most of these requests are related to criminal matters, such as theft and kidnapping.

In most cases, basic data is required, such as name, date of registration and duration of use of the social network.

Additionally, states may request data on IP addresses or the content of the accounts themselves.

"For every request we accept, we carefully check whether they are legally acceptable. We may reject them or ask for more details on requests if they are too broad or vague," Meta's website states.

Both in 2021 and 2022, Serbia has made the largest number of requests to the Meta company compared to other countries in the region.

In 2022, Montenegro made the fewest requests, while Kosovo in 2021 had the fewest requests in Meta.

As for global statistics, last year countries sent over 476,000 requests to Meta, which is 51,000 more than in 2021, when the number was just over 425,000.

In the Western Balkans, Serbia also leads when it comes to requests for urgent actions, although the number of such requests in 2022 has decreased compared to the previous year.

The smallest number of such requests - only one - was sent by North Macedonia last year. Meta does not share all the data that states request, but some of these requests are rejected or returned for completion.

However, in the transparency report, Meta also publishes the percentage of information that the company shares after requests. These statistics also include cases in which the company Meta has provided information about users after the request of the government of a country.

Last year, Croatia had the region's highest rate of partially or fully met claims at over 85 percent, followed by Serbia at 10 percent less.

Kosovo had the lowest degree of fulfillment of requirements - 19 percent.

State requirements may also apply to Meta's social media accounts.

In 2022, the number of orders that were subject to state requests sent to the company Meta for information related to users in the region was the highest in the case of Serbia.

Montenegro had up to 12 times the lowest number of these requests, ranking last in the region.

Globally, the total number of users or accounts for which countries have requested data rose from 716,000 to almost 828,000.

The transparency reports were published earlier by the Twitter company – a social network owned by Elon Musk, the billionaire and founder of SpaceX, since October 2022.

However, Twitter has published its latest transparency report for the period July-December 2021./ Rel