Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has revealed statistics of data the government sought from it regarding the accounts held by Kenyans on its platforms.
In its Transparency Center report, it was revealed that the government made 23 requests to Meta between January and June 2024.
19 of those requests were made for legal purposes, while 3 requests were cited as emergency disclosure requests.
Notably, the social media company indicated that the January-June data targeted 37 accounts.
Meta detailed that 43.5 percent of the requests by the governments were honoured during that period.
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According to Meta, most governments seek information on social media accounts in cases where there are investigations of a crime, such as kidnappings.
"Meta responds to government requests for data in accordance with applicable law and our terms of service," read the report in part.
"Each and every request we receive is carefully reviewed for legal sufficiency, and we may reject or require greater specificity on requests that appear overly broad or vague.
July to December
Between July to December 2024, the government made 12 requests targeting 18 account holders.
The majority of the requests were for legal processes (9), while the remaining 3 were emergency disclosure requests.
Only 33 per cent of the requests were honoured by Meta.
"Meta scrutinizes every government request and produces only the information that is narrowly tailored to respond to each request.
"Depending on the request, Meta may produce Basic subscriber information, Such as name, length of service, payment information, email addresses, and recent login/logout IP addresses. Records pertaining to account activity, Such as message headers and IP addresses," read part of the report in part.
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