The Federal government might after all make good her threat of spying on its citizens through the social media and email accounts.
This is contained in a report made available to newsmen by the Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA)
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 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’ data, content preservation, and content removal.
Facebook listed Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt and Sudan as the African countries that made the highest requests.
The social media giant had said that the government of Nigeria had specified the highest number of user information on its user information requests with 113 accounts.
Facebook said that Nigeria also made requests for content in six user accounts to be preserved.
It said that Nigeria made requests for 96 users’ information during the second half of 2015, meaning that the requests were made after President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office on May 29, 2015.
Google also declared that Nigeria in 2015 made requests to it.
Google launched the first transparency report in 2009, followed by Twitter in 2012, and Facebook and Yahoo in 2013.
“Nigeria is the only government in Africa to have made a user information request to Google and it was fully complied with. The emergency disclosure request was made by the Nigerian authorities in the second half of 2016 and it related to five user accounts.
“Google had rejected all of Nigeria’s seven previous requests,” it explained.
Twitter, in its transparency declaration, stated that Nigeria made three emergency requests, of which two were complied with.
Recall that the Nigerian Army had said it was monitoring social media site as part of its surveillance program.