Kosovo with the lowest degree of requirements met by Meta to get information regarding user data

Since 2013, Meta, the social networking company Facebook and Instagram, has published transparency reports on its website every six months, including the demands state data sharing institutions make.

The states are looking for data from Meta, as part of the official investigation. Most of these are related to criminal cases, such as theft and kidnapping.

In most cases basic data is required, such as name, registration date, and the length of social networking.

Furthermore, states may request data on IP addresses or accounts themselves.

Whatever request we accept, we carefully check whether they are legally acceptable. We can either refuse them or ask for more details about the requirements, whether they are very broad or unclear”, the Meta site says.

In both 2021 and 2022, Serbia has made the largest number of requests in Meta Company compared to other states in the region.

In 2022, Montenegro has made at least the request, while Kosovo in 2021 had at least run demands in Meta.

As far as statistics are concerned on the global level last year, states submitted over 476,000 Meta requests, 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 urgent action requirements, although the number of such requirements in 2022 has declined compared to the previous year.

The smallest number of such requests - just one ʹ has been submitted by Northern Macedonia last year.

Meta company does not share all the data the states require, but part of these requests are rejected or turned back for completion.

However, in the report on transparency, Meta also publishes the percentage of information the company shares behind demands. These statistics also include cases in which Meta company has provided user information after a government request.

Last year, Croatia had the highest rate in the region of partly or completely met requirements of over 85 per cent, followed by Serbia by 10 per cent less.

Kosovo has had the lowest degree of meeting requirements -- 19 per cent.

State requirements can also apply to Meta's accounts on social networks.
In 2022, the number of orders that were subject to state requirements sent to the Meta company for user-related information in the region was highest in Serbia's case.

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

At the global level, the total number of users or accounts for which states have requested data increased from 716 thousand to almost 828 thousand.

Transparency reports were released earlier by the Twitter company A social network owned by Elon Musk, the billionaire and founder of SpaceX, since October 2022.

Twitter, however, has published its latest transparency report for July-December 2021. / REL