Facebook says there was a steep rise in data requests from India's government in the first half of this year as compared to the previous two years.

The company, in a report released on Friday, said that it received 16,580 data requests from the government in the January-June period as compared to 22,024 requests in all of 2017 and 13,613 in 2016.

Facebook said it provided data to the government in 53 per cent of the cases.

It did not say what kind of data was being sought.

The Indian Express newspaper said the data usually related to law enforcement.

Facebook is grappling with challenges ranging from fake news to its role in elections interference, hate speech and incitement to violence in the United States, Myanmar, India and elsewhere.

Read more:UN urges Facebook to 'proactively' fight hate speech

The company said it responded to government requests for data in accordance with applicable laws and its terms of service.

"Each and every request we receive is carefully reviewed for legal sufficiency and we may reject or require greater specificity on requests that appear overly broad or vague," it said.

Facebook said it accepted government requests to preserve account information pending receipt of formal legal process.

"When we receive a preservation request, we will preserve a temporary snapshot of the relevant account information, but will not disclose any of the preserved records unless and until we receive formal and valid legal process," it said.