The Data Protection Commissioner says all requests for information from Facebook by the Irish authorities were legitimate requests.

Authorities lodged 40 applications for information on Facebook users from the social networking company in the first six months of the year. The majority of which related to criminal activity.

The website says it received 34 requests from the Irish authorities to supply details, in accordance with Irish law. It added that some data was released in 71% of the requests.

Facebook has published its first Global Government Requests Report which shows that information on 38,000 people around the world was sought from Facebook.

The report covers the first 6 months of 2013, ending June 30th.

Facebook has some 2.4 million Irish users

Facebook says it scrutinizes each request "for legal sufficiency under our terms and the strict letter of the law, and require a detailed description of the legal and factual bases for each request".

The site adds that it fights many of these requests, "pushing back when we find legal deficiencies and narrowing the scope of overly broad or vague requests".

But it says that that when they are required to comply with a particular request, they frequently share "only basic user information, such as name". The website claims to have around 2.4 million users in Ireland.

Billy Hawkes says Facebook does apply a strict approach to handing over user data. He told Breakfast here on Newstalk his office supports Facebook efforts to tackle criminal elements.