Nigeria was not among 74 countries that secretly pressed social media giant, Facebook, for the private data of their nationals or residents, the company indicated in a report released Tuesday.

Facebook said in its first report showing how governments snoop on the citizens that it received requests asking for the release data of at least 38,000 users between January and June 2013.

Four African countries – South Africa, Uganda, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Botswana – made the list.

In all, the United States, by far, sought the most user information from Facebook — from 11,000 to 12,000 requests for access to more than 20,000 accounts. Facebook said that it supplied data in roughly 79 percent of those cases.

The United States allows companies to release only the ranges of the number of requests the government makes. Facebook complied 79 percent of the time.

Britain filed the second-most requests for data from Facebook: 1,975 requests from 2,337 user accounts. Facebook said it complied 68 percent of the time. France, Germany, India and Italy also made more than 1,000 requests during the first half of 2013.

South Africa led in Africa with 14 requests on nine users, followed by Egypt with eight requests on 11 users. Uganda requested the least – only once.

The report, released on Tuesday, covers every request the company has received from every government from January through June 30.

Facebook said the report includes requests made for security reasons and for criminal cases.

Nigeria’s absence on the lists would appear a boost to the government’s claim about its respect for the privacy of Nigerians and their right to free speech; an assertion which came under intense criticism after the government’s secret internet surveillance contract to an Israeli firm was exposed in March 2013.

The report by Facebook came as part of the fallout of the leak by former CIA analyst, Edward Snowden, on United States of America’s clandestine phone and internet spy program.

Facebook said that it plans to release the data reports regularly.

Several technology firms, including Google and Twitter, have released regular reports in past years. Others, such as Yahoo, have recently started sharing information on government requests in the wake of Snowden’s revelations.

minc: Facebook can lie! I have incontrovertible evidence.

changes1: damn... well good one