India sends fewer user data and take down requests to Wikipedia than US, UK

BANGALORE: Indian Wikipedians are relatively safe from scrutiny by the government or agencies asking for user data or wanting to take down content. Between July 2012 and June 2014, Wikipedia received a total of 56 requests for user data and 304 requests for content alteration and take down.

Only 5 user information requests, including one informal non-governmental request, 3 informal government request and one civil subpoenas were sent to Wikipedia from India. The non-profit did not produce information for any. The United States sent over 21 such requests for which Wikipedia produced information in 8 cases.

Of the 304 requests for content alteration and takedown worldwide, only 5 were from India. In comparison, over a hundred were from the United States and 50 were from Germany.

Major technology companies have been releasing transparency reports detailing government and non government requests for user data or content takedown to act as a deterrent for such requests. Earlier, many of them came under fire after allegations surfaced that they were providing backdoor entry to government agencies wanting to spy on user information.

Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook and Yahoo have released such reports. Apple said in its transparency report in November that it received 27 requests from the Indian government for user information. Microsoft received 321 such requests in the first 6 months of 2013. Twitter received less than 10 such requests from January 2012 and Yahoo received 2704 such requests between January 2013 and June 2013.

In its first transparency report, Facebook said India sent the most number of data requests to the social network. India asked for information on on 4144 accounts from Facebook, which complied in 50% of the cases.