Twitter Reveals Data About the U.S. Government Requests it Receives for User Information

Posted on August 4, 2013

Twitter recently shared information about the types of government requests it received regarding user accounts. Twitter says information about 1,319 user accounts were requested from January 1st through June 30. Of these, 56% were subpoenas, 23% were search warrants, 11% were court orders and 10% fell into a category Twitter calls "Other." Twitter says the "Other" category includes " exigent emergency disclosure requests and other requests received for user information without valid legal process."

Twitter also noted that its policy is "to notify users of requests for their account information unless we are prohibited from doing so by law or in an emergency situation." Users were notified in 19% of U.S. requests. The other requests were either issued under seal (20%) or were defective or withdrawn requests for information.

You can find the Twitter data in a report located here on Twitter.com.