Georgia Gov’t makes 47 data requests to Meta in first half of 2023

In the initial half of 2023, the Government of Georgia reached out to Meta on 47 occasions, seeking information over Facebook accounts as part of specific investigations, with the requests encompassing various Meta platforms, including Instagram, Messenger, Oculus, and Whatsapp.

Meta disclosed the majority of those inquiries were related to criminal cases such as robbery or kidnapping and the information sought by the government typically included basic user details like registration date, length of service, as well as the potential examination of IP addresses and account contents.

Upon receiving a government request, Meta undertakes a thorough review of the legal basis for each demand. The company also reserves the right to deny information if it deems the request overly broad or vague, and may request additional clarification from the government.Meta reported a total of 47 requests from the Government of Georgia during the January-June 2023 period and claimed to have fulfilled certain data demands in approximately 93.62% of the cases, based on their own records.

Comparing these figures to previous years, there is an uptick in both the number of requests and the rate of compliance. 

In the first half of 2022, the Georgian government made 27 requests, while from July to December 2022, there were 28 requests.