Kenyan gov’t requests for Meta users’ data hit record high in 2024

President William Ruto’s government reached out to Meta with requests for users’ data at record-high levels in 2024, data released by the technology giant shows.

Meta, the owner of WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, hands over data on millions of users’ accounts to governments upon request “in accordance with applicable law and our terms of service.”

This could be for legal process or emergency disclosure reasons.

Per statistics published on the company’s Transparency Centre, the Kenyan government made 35 requests for data on 55 users or accounts in 2024.

Twenty-three requests were between January and June, 19 of which were for legal processes and the other four for emergency disclosure.

The company says for 43.50 percent of the requests, some data was produced.

During the second half of the year, Ruto’s government sent 12 requests to the Facebook parent; nine for legal processes and three for emergency disclosure.

This was an increase from the 15 requests Meta received from the Kenyan government throughout 2023, 23 in 2022, and 25 in 2021.

In 2020, the company recorded 33 user data requests from Kenyan authorities.

Regionally, Uganda made only two requests in 2024, Tanzania and South Sudan made one each, while for others like Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Somalia, Meta received none.

Morocco topped the continent with 1,188 requests.

Meanwhile, the United States submitted the highest number of data requests globally at 156,556, followed by the United Kingdom with 21,684.

Meta says it reviews the requests for legal sufficiency and may reject or require greater specificity on those that appear “overly broad or vague.”