Govt trying to sign deal with Facebook

Despite being turned down several times, the government is still planning to strike a deal with Facebook to be able to get information about its users to ensure cyber security in Bangladesh.

The social media platform turned down all the requests for user information the government made in the six months till June this year, according to the Global Government Requests Report of Facebook released last week.

Bangladesh has become vulnerable to cyber attacks, especially through the use of Facebook, Tarana Halim, state minister for posts and telecommunications, told reporters during a meeting at the office of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) yesterday.

Some of the Facebook statuses and posts are uploaded only to harass politicians and women; even sometimes women commit suicide as they cannot tolerate those, she said. "We want a significant change here."

"If necessary, we will call them, send letters or request them to sign a deal with us," she said.

BTRC officials said the home ministry was working to have the deal signed.

Before 2006, Facebook showed interest to sign a deal with Bangladesh on the condition that the networking site will not take responsibility for the users' posts, Tarana said.

The deal could not be signed because the then BNP-Jamaat alliance government opposed it, she said.

Since it introduced the half-yearly report in 2013, Facebook has not provided any data to Bangladesh's government, which had made 16 requests about 37 users by the time.

However, Facebook did  not say how many contents had been restricted access from Bangladesh or taken down upon requests by the government. But the social media giant said in the report that globally 20,568 posts and other pieces of content that violated local laws had been removed in the first half of the year.

In meeting with the representatives of the Posts and Telecommunications Division on October 29, BTRC officials said the government needed to have a mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) with the USA before signing an agreement with Facebook. MLAT is an agreement between two or more countries for gathering and exchanging information to enforce public or criminal laws.