Facebook rejects Ugandan request for user information

By Wesley Spartan

Uganda has been named among three African countries that in the first six months of this year asked administrators of social networking site Facebook for details of one of its users.
Ofwono Opondo, the executive director of Uganda Media Centre, yesterday said police filed the request in relation to a “cybercrime”, whose specifics he could not provide.
The Interception of Communications Act 2010 empowers the State – upon securing a court warrant - to intercept any electronic or hardcopy correspondence, and Mr Opondo said the request was legal.
“It is not that we don’t know what the users are doing. The purpose [of the formal request to Facebook administrators] was to facilitate prosecution; to make the case tighter,” he said.
Facebook turned down the request, as it did for Egypt and Botswana. Police deputy spokesperson Patrick Onyango said he was on a trip, and would not say if they would re-apply for the information denied because government failed to meet the requirements.
The growth in Internet use has resulted in proliferation of online criminal activity, which governments cite as justification to monitor electronic communication, including social networking sites, to prevent sophisticated crime.
Data intercepts
American whistleblower Edward Snowden, in leaked dossiers showed the US government was already carrying out huge telephone and email data intercepts, implying many governments are likely hacking into communications of citizens without their knowledge.
In Facebook’s first Global Government Requests Report released on Tuesday, the networking site echoed its commitment to protect users’ privacy and said it would disclose information to governments if they “meet a very high legal bar with each individual request in order to receive any information about any of our users”.
Whereas Facebook turned down the handful requests from the three African countries, it disclosed roughly eight in every 10 user details the US government sought, and 69 per cent of UK requests.
This could imply either government fulfilled the site’s criteria or leveraged on their clout. India, Italy, France, Germany and Australia were among the top 51 countries that made formal requests.
On Wednesday, Makerere University lecturer Gerald Businge, who teaches New Media, said governments’ have a right to obtain any information with justification. “The major issue is whether users can trust social media sites with private information or leverage on them. People should be cautious of what they reveal on social media,” he said.
Security minister Muruli Mukasa early this year announced that they had set up a social media monitoring unit to check proliferation of cybercrime in the country.