Facebook, Microsoft admit receiving thousands of warrants seeking data

Facebook and Microsoft said they had received thousands of warrants for data from government entities in the US during the second half of 2012, but added the US government did not permit them to provide specific figures.

Instead, the government allowed the companies to release only broad numbers with no breakdowns. During the last six months of 2012, Facebook said it had received as many as 10,000 requests from local, state and federal agencies, which impacted as many as 19,000 accounts. Microsoft said that it received between 6,000 and 7,000 similar requests, affecting as many as 32,000 accounts.

The companies said some of the requests were for terrorist investigations. But others were from a local sheriff asking for data to locate a missing child or from federal marshals tracking fugitives. From these statements, it was impossible to ascertain the scale of requests made by the US National Security Agency under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The companies said they had been pressing the US government for permission to talk more openly about the data requests since Edward Snowden, a computer technician who did work for the NSA, disclosed that the agency was collecting data under a US government programme named Prism.

Facebook and other tech companies have vigorously denied giving the government direct access to their servers. But they said they complied with law-enforcement requests approved by a court. The companies, seeking to reassure users that authorities did not have unfettered access to personal details, said the numbers were a "tiny fraction" of their user bases.

Ted Ullyot, Facebook's general counsel, said they were only allowed to talk about total numbers and must give no specifics. But he said the permission it had received was still unprecedented, and the company was lobbying to reveal more.