The second edition of Facebook’s Global Government Requests Report confirms what the first edition had revealed: that the Maltese are the most likely – by far – to have their Facebook account accessed by their national authorities.

The company started publishing the reports in a bid to clarify its approach to responding to government data requests. The first-ever report, which was published last August, covered the first half of 2013. The second report, covering the last six months of 2013, was published earlier this month.

Put together, the two reports show that the Maltese authorities made 170 requests to access user data last year, covering a total of 224 user accounts. In 103 cases, Facebook agreed to produce at least some of the data requested.

A total of 88 countries actually requested user data from Facebook last year, making up to 54,754 requests referencing up to 78,274 user accounts among them. Malta made the 23rd-highest number of requests.

The United States leads the list by a considerable distance, as it made 23,598-24,598 requests referencing 38,715-39,715 user accounts. Precise figures for the US are not available in the first half of the year: the US government had imposed limitations on Facebook’s ability to report precise figures.

But the situation changes considerably when one takes national populations into account. Since no such figures are included in the Facebook reports, the latest population estimates included in the CIA World Factbook are used as reference.

Comparing Facebook’s data with population figures show that the Maltese government makes the largest number of requests per capita: a total of 412 requests per million people.

This figure dwarfs those registered in any other country: the US is ranked second, but it has only made some 77 requests per million people. The United Kingdom is ranked third with 61 requests per million, followed by Italy with 55 and Australia with 51.

Countries’ requests for data have varying levels of success. Iceland is the only country to obtain data for all of its requests, but it only made one request last year. A total of 103 Maltese requests were at least partially successful, representing a success rate of 60.6%, slightly lower than the global average of around 63%.

According to Facebook, the vast majority of requests for data relate to criminal investigations, and authorities typically seek basic subscriber information, such as their name and length of service. However, other requests have asked for IP address logs and for actual account content.

The website emphasises that it has strict processes in place to handle such requests, checking each for legal sufficiency. Officials are required to provide a detailed description of the legal and factual basis for their request, and the site often shares only basic information even where it determines that local law would compel disclosure.

There are many factors which may influence the frequency of requests, including Facebook’s relative popularity in any country, although that alone is highly unlikely to account for the extraordinarily high frequency of data requests coming from Malta.

The differing nature of criminal investigations across the world may also play a factor.

For instance, investigations peculiar to Malta include those related to the General Elections Act: specifically, the prohibition of campaigning on the eve of the election. But only six such requests had been made to Facebook last year, as the police confirmed to The Malta Independent when the first edition of the report came out.

No Maltese requests for Facebook censorship

The second edition of the report also goes into another form of government requests Facebook processes: request to restrict access to particular content.

The website declares that when such requests come in, it complies with making content unavailable in certain countries if it determines that it violates local law.

Only 13 countries have made such requests, however, and Malta is not one of them.

One might assume that requests to restrict access to content are most likely to be made by authoritarian regimes, but that is not actually the case – not least, perhaps, because such regimes are more likely to restrict access to the website itself in the first place.

Two countries – India and Turkey – account for 92% of the 7,371 instances in which Facebook complied to restrict access to certain content to the Facebook users within a certain country.

Indian Facebook users faced 4,765 content restrictions, due to material falling afoul of local laws prohibiting criticism of a religion or of the state. Access was also restricted to 2,014 pieces of content in Turkey, due to laws prohibiting defamation or criticism of the Turkish state or of Turkey’s first president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

The list of countries which requested restricted access to content actually includes five EU member states: Germany (84 requests), France (80), Austria (78), Italy (5) and the UK (3).

The restrictions requested by Germany, France and Austria were motivated by identical reasons: laws which criminalise denying that the Holocaust took place, which also account for 113 restrictions in Israel. Content restrictions in Italy were triggered by laws prohibiting hate speech, while those in the UK were the result of court injunctions.

Facebook restricted access to 162 pieces of content in Pakistan due to laws prohibiting blasphemy and criticism of the state; the latter reason was behind the 3 restrictions implemented in Bangladesh. In the United Arab Emirates, access was restricted to 12 pieces of content due to laws prohibiting criticism of the government or of the royal family.

Anti-discrimination laws led to 48 content restrictions in Australia, while 4 restrictions were implemented in Russia due to laws prohibiting access to certain material concerning drug-use and self-harm.