US tops in user data requests, India among least: Twitter

US government, which has been in eye of a storm due to the snooping PRISM programme, had the lion's share in user data requests under it between January- June 2013, while India had less than 10 such requests, says the social networking site Twitter's transparency report.

Twitter's bi-annual Transparency Report, first published in July 2012, highlights trends in government requests for account information, content removal and copyright notices.
Of the total 1,157 user information requests received between January 1-June 30 2013, the US government made a total of 902 requests, Twitter said in the report.

PRISM, the controversial snooping programme run by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the US, allowed analysts to search through vast databases containing e-mails, online chats and browsing histories of millions of individuals.

During the most recent period (January-June 2013), 78 per cent of all worldwide requests received originated from the US, it added.

Japan followed the US with 87 user information requests, the UK (26), Brazil (22), Italy (22), France (18), Spain (13), among others.

As far removal request is concerned, Twitter said it received a total of 60 removal requests in the first six months of 2013.

"Removal requests include government requests (and other complaints of illegal content from authorised reporters)" received by the networking major to remove or withhold content.

"Governments generally make removal requests for content that may be illegal in their respective jurisdictions," it said.

Russian government made the most removal requests, 17, to twitter, followed by Brazil (10), Turkey (7), Germany (4), France (3), among others.

India made a total of two requests, one by court order and the other by a government agency for removal.

Compared to its dominance in the area of data requests, the US made two requests for removal on content, both issued by courts.

Total tweets withheld by Twitter in January-June 2013 due to removal requests were 73, of which Brazil accounted for 39 followed by France (12), Russian federation (8), Japan (6) and South Korea and Netherlands five each. Tweets withheld in India were three.