Five African governments made legal demands to Twitter to produce account information in the second half of last year, up from four in the previous half, a new report by the social networking service shows. Kenya, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were among 71 countries worldwide that made information requests to Twitter during this period. Together, the African countries made a total of eight requests, with Kenya’s accounting for half of these. Twitter did not comply with any of them. The report categorizes the demands as routine requests, which compel Twitter to submit account information; emergency requests, which are about the imminent threat of death or serious physical injury to a person; and preservation requests, which require Twitter to maintain account data pending issuance of a legal process to obtain the data.
SOURCE: QUARTZ AFRICA