India scanned 18 Facebook users daily this year

India, which has over 82 million Facebook users, on an average made 18 requests per day about data related to its users between January and June this year from the social networking giant, which complied with about 50 per cent of those requests.

The California-based firm in its first 'Global Government Requests Report' revealed India made the second largest number of user requests after the US, which sought information on about 20,000 to 21,000 Facebook users in first half of 2013.

Indian law enforcement entities made 3,245 requests for information on 4,144 Facebook users in the first six months of 2013, the report said.

The US made a total of 11,000-12,000 information requests on 20,000-21,000 user accounts of which the social networking firm complied with about 79 per cent requests on which some data was given, it added.

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India, which has over 82 million Facebook users, on an average made 18 requests per day about data related to its users between January and June this year from the social networking giant, which complied with about 50 per cent of those requests.

The California-based firm in its first 'Global Government Requests Report' revealed India made the second largest number of user requests after the US, which sought information on about 20,000 to 21,000 Facebook users in first half of 2013.

Indian law enforcement entities made 3,245 requests for information on 4,144 Facebook users in the first six months of 2013, the report said.

The US made a total of 11,000-12,000 information requests on 20,000-21,000 user accounts of which the social networking firm complied with about 79 per cent requests on which some data was given, it added.

In total, Facebook said it received more than 25,000 government data requests in the first half of 2013. The UK, Germany and Italy follow the US and India in the list.

The UK made 1,975 requests, Germany 1,886, while Italy made 1,705 requests about user data. France placed 1,547 requests during the same period.

The report displays data about countries asking information from Facebook about its users, requests received from each of those nations and number of users/user accounts in the requests.

The report also shows data on the percentage of these requests in which Facebook was required by law to disclose at least some data.

"Governments make requests to Facebook and many other companies seeking account information in official investigations. The vast majority of these requests relate to criminal cases, such as robberies or kidnappings," Facebook said.

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"In many of these cases, these government requests seek basic subscriber information, such as name and length of service. Other requests may also seek IP address logs or actual account content," it said.

The report close on the heels of technology firms coming under pressure following revelations of a secret US government programme, which scoops up data from these Internet companies.

Tech firms including Facebook and Google have been seeking to release more information on government data requests, in the belief that this would reassure their customers.

Facebook's report follows the release of similar information from other tech firms, including Google, Microsoft and Twitter.