Facebook, Google, Others Confirm Nigeria’s Requests For User Information
A new report has confirmed what many Nigerians have long suspected to be true: that the federal government is spying on its citizens through the social media and email accounts. The report titled, “The Growing Trend of African Government’s Requests for User Information and Content Removal from Internet and Telecoms Companies,” was released last month by the Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) established under the Catalysing Access to Information and Communications Technologies in Africa (CATIA) initiatives funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID). The organisation analysed transparency reports released by telecommunications and social media companies. The reports by these companies including Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Twitter and others showed that there has been a surge in African governments’ requests for user information. According to the report, African governments’ requests are for subscribers...