NOTE: The data in these reports is as accurate and comprehensive as possible.

This data includes the number of U.S. government requests received for account information, the percentage of requests we complied with in whole or in part, and the number of accounts specified in these requests.

As Twitter, Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco, California, information requests from the U.S. continue to make up the highest percentage among requesting countries from around the world. Between July and December, 2018, 30% of all global requests for account information originated from the United States.

NOTE: The data above does not include national security requests. Please refer to the “National security requests” section below for additional information on the national security letters we are now legally permitted to convey, and an update on the Twitter v. Barr ( f.k.a. Twitter v. Lynch and Twitter v. Sessions) lawsuit and our commitment to fighting for greater transparency in national security request reporting.

User privacy

Twitter generally requires a search warrant to disclose any content information, since users have the greatest privacy interest in this type of information. Twitter may disclose content in the U.S. without receiving a search warrant in rare circumstances, in accordance with applicable law. For example, if there is an emergency involving an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm, in response to certain national security requests, or with the account-holder’s lawful consent. Twitter also reports child sexual exploitation content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) as required by U.S. law and in accordance with our zero tolerance policy.

Twitter also furthers our commitment to user privacy with our support for and interpretation of CalECPA, a California state law which went into effect at the beginning of 2016. CalECPA sets a higher bar for California state government entities to obtain certain user data than the floor established by federal law (ECPA). As a result, California state law enforcement and government entities must obtain a warrant based on probable cause to compel a provider like Twitter to disclose IP addresses, which would also generally be available with a subpoena or court order under federal law.

As a California-based company, Twitter generally requires state and local government entities outside of California to properly domesticate a request for IP addresses in California state court. As a result, Twitter generally will not disclose IP addresses to state/local government entities outside of California without a subpoena or court order, and a broader set of Twitter users benefit from the protections of CalECPA.

During this reporting period, Twitter received 282 subpoenas and court orders issued by state and local government entities outside of California which sought IP addresses, compared to 291 such requests in the prior reporting period. In 51 of the 282 matters during this reporting period, requesters either withdrew their request entirely, withdrew their request for IP addresses, or properly domesticated their request in California as a result of our approach to CalECPA.

Breakdown by state / territory (2018: Jul - Dec):

State name: # Federal | # State/Local

Requests are attributed to a particular state based on the location of the requesting office. Twitter received the greatest percentage of requests from Washington, D.C., New York, California, and Virginia during this reporting period, as well as the three prior reporting periods.  

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), U.S. Secret Service (USSS), and U.S. Capitol Police submitted the greatest percentage of requests during this reporting period. The FBI, DOJ, and USSS have also consistently submitted the greatest percentage of requests for the five previous reporting periods.

Footnotes

• Some cases received during this reporting period may be in progress and may not be closed at the time of reporting.

• Information requests include both federal and state legal process. Requests are attributed to a particular state based on the location of the requesting office.

• This data excludes emergency disclosure requests.

County-level insights

This section includes information about the counties submitting the most requests from the states which submitted the most requests during this reporting period. We publish this information to offer additional insight into the frequency that local authorities seek user data and any possible related trends. We classify the county of the requester based on the address of the requesting office.  

California
Since we have begun reporting at the county level, Los Angeles County has been the top requester in California. As in the last reporting period, Los Angeles County again submitted 27% of total California state information requests.

Florida
Pinellas County submitted 18% of total Florida state information requests in this reporting period. In the previous reporting period, Broward County and Hillsborough County were tied as the top requesters, each submitting 15% of total Florida state information requests. During this reporting period, Broward County submitted 17% and Hillsborough County submitted 6% of total Florida state information requests.

Maryland
Anne Arundel County was the top county requester in Maryland, submitting 22% of total Maryland state information requests. This is a decrease by 2 percentage points compared to the last reporting period.

New York
New York County was again the top New York state requester, continuing to submit 50% of total New York state requests.

Texas
Harris County was the top requester, submitting 20% of total Texas state information requests. During the previous reporting period, Harris County submitted 32% of all Texas state information requests.

Virginia
Manassas City County was Virginia’s top requester, submitting 22% of total state information requests. In the last reporting period, Manassas City County submitted 17% of total Virginia state information requests.

Types of legal process

NOTE: The data in these reports is as accurate and comprehensive as possible.

Most U.S. information requests come in one of three forms of legal process:

Subpoenas

• Subpoenas are the most common form of legal process issued under the Stored Communications Act. They do not generally require judicial review and usually seek basic subscriber information, such as the email address associated with an account and IP logs. However, as noted above, Twitter may require a search warrant from state law enforcement to disclose IP addresses, in accordance with CalECPA.

Court orders

• Unlike subpoenas, court orders do require judicial review, and must be issued by an appropriate judge. The law enforcement or government entity applying for an order must make a greater showing than is required for a subpoena, and may request transactional information (i.e., the non-content portion of communications such as the "from," "to," and "date" fields of DMs) with federal “2703(d) court orders” or state law equivalents. While Twitter mostly receives “2703(d) orders,” more information about other types of court orders received is available below.

Search warrants

• As proscribed by the Fourth Amendment, warrants typically require the most judicial scrutiny before they are issued. To obtain a search warrant, the government must demonstrate to an independent judge or magistrate that there is probable cause to believe that certain evidence will be found in the location identified. The government has to meet the greatest burden before the judge will issue this type of legal process, and warrants must be particularized to the specific facts of the case. A valid warrant is required for Twitter to disclose the contents of communications (e.g., Tweet content, DM content, Periscope broadcasts).

Other

• Requests from law enforcement that do not fall in any of the above categories. Examples include emergency disclosure requests and other requests for account information without valid legal process.

Certain Types of Court Orders

Mutual legal assistance treaty requests
Mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) requests may authorize district courts within the United States to order Twitter to produce account information for use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal, including criminal investigations.

Twitter may receive U.S. requests for information on behalf of foreign governments based on other forms of cross-jurisdictional assistance. For example, requests may be issued pursuant to letters rogatory, or under mutual legal assistance agreements with countries that have not yet been officially brought into force through an actual treaty. Or, MLAT requests may be issued under multilateral treaties which the U.S. has signed and ratified, like the Inter-American Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance of the Organization of American States, the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, or the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.

Previously, we included a comprehensive list of the number of requests that were confirmed to have been made via MLAT procedures for all previous reports. We have updated our reporting layout to only include the MLAT data for the current report. To view historical data, please navigate to previous U.S. reports through the dropdown menu at the top of the page.

• 2018: Jul 1 - Dec 31: 7% of court orders and 0% of search warrants received have been explicitly identified as having been issued as a result of MLAT requests, which originated in Argentina, Chile, Ireland, Malta*, Netherlands, Philippines, and Spain.

• *First time we identified an MLAT request originating from this country.

Pen register / trap and trace orders
Pen register/trap and trace (“PRTT”) orders authorize the government to obtain prospective metadata of communications for the account specified for up to 60 days. This means that Twitter would be required to disclose data on an ongoing basis that did not yet exist at the time the order was signed. PRTT orders may require Twitter to disclose IP address records and transactional information (i.e., the non-content portion of communications such as the "from," "to," and "date" fields). Twitter is prohibited from notifying affected users about the existence of PRTT orders until otherwise authorized by the court, pursuant to the PRTT statute.

Previously, we included a running list of the percentage of PRTT orders received for all previous reports. We have updated our reporting layout to only include the PRTT order data for the current report. To view historical data, please navigate to previous U.S. reports through the dropdown menu at the top of the page.

• 2018: Jul 1 - Dec 31: 16% of court orders received by Twitter were PRTT orders. This is the same percentage as the previous reporting period.

Wiretap orders
Wiretap orders authorize the government to obtain prospective metadata and content of communications for the specified account for up to 30 days. To date, Twitter has not received a valid wiretap order. Twitter has received orders purporteldy requiring such real-time surveillance, but these orders were not issued in compliance with the requirements of the Wiretap Act and therefore Twitter did not comply with the wiretap request. These orders nonetheless may meet legal requirements for other types of disclosures and are therefore reflected in our figures accordingly. Like PRTT orders, wiretap orders are issued under seal and Twitter would therefore generally be prohibited from notifying affected users of the existence of such an order until otherwise ordered by the court.

All Writs Act orders
The All Writs Act is a U.S. law from 1789 which authorizes a court to issue an order which is “necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law”. The government invoked this apparent authority in the context of litigation with Apple. To date, Twitter has not received an order issued pursuant to this authority.

User notice

NOTE: The data in these reports is as accurate and comprehensive as possible.

As noted in our Guidelines for Law Enforcement and Legal request FAQs, Twitter has a policy of notifying affected users of requests to disclose their account information unless prohibited or on the basis of an applicable exception (i.e. requests related to child sexual exploitation, terrorism, or other circumstances where notice would be counterproductive).

If a non-disclosure order prohibits Twitter from notifying affected users prior to disclosing their data, we may provide delayed notice after the prohibition expires because we believe it is important for users to know that Twitter received the request.

Some non-disclosure orders do not include an explicit date when the confidentiality obligation expires. When we receive these orders, Twitter regularly seeks an amended order with a specified duration for the non-disclosure requirement (e.g., 90 days).

Twitter has filed challenges to non-disclosure orders where there were concerns about compliance with the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 2705(b) and/or the unlimited duration. In October 2017, the U.S. DOJ issued a guidance memorandum to federal prosecutors seeking non-disclosure orders pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2705(b). Most notably, the guidance states that prosecutors should generally seek non-disclosure orders limited to one year or less, and applications for such orders should reflect meaningful and individualized (i.e., non-boilerplate) justifications for the non-disclosure order.

Some cases received during this reporting period may be in progress and may not be closed at the time of reporting.

More information about user notice is available in our Guidelines for Law Enforcement.

'Percentage of requests where notice is lawfully prohibited':

• ‘Lawfully prohibited’ notice means that a court has issued an order legally prohibiting us from notifying affected users (or anyone else) about the request prior to disclosure, or local law prohibits us from providing notice.

'Percentage of requests where user notice provided':

• This is the number of requests in which Twitter attempted to notify the affected users prior to disclosure out of the total number of requests received.

'Percentage of requests not under seal and no notice provided':

• Twitter generally does not notify users if no data was disclosed in response to the request (i.e. the request was withdrawn by the requester prior to disclosure or the request was defective).

• Other exceptions to Twitter’s user notice policy include emergency disclosure requests, requests related to child sexual exploitation or terrorism, or other circumstances where notice would be counterproductive.

National security requests

NOTE: The data in these reports is as accurate and comprehensive as possible.

As in past reports, Twitter is only able to publish very limited information about national security requests, due to legal prohibitions that we continue to challenge in court (see below for an update on Twitter v. Barr, our ongoing transparency litigation).

At this time we are able to share information about the number of National Security Letters (“NSLs”) received which are no longer subject to non-disclosure orders. We believe it is much more meaningful to publish these actual numbers than reporting in the bands authorized per the USA Freedom Act. (These reporting limits are not applicable for national security process which is no longer subject to non-disclosure requirements.)

During this reporting period we notified users affected by two additional NSLs after the gag orders were lifted. As reflected in the table above, non-disclosure orders for 14 total NSLs have been lifted to date.

Gag orders on NSLs are lifted in one of two different ways. The government may review whether gag orders should stay in place pursuant to DOJ guidelines, and if a gag order is no longer justified or necessary, the government will notify the provider of this determination. The other avenue allows providers to make a request to the government that a court review the gag order. The government may opt to lift the gag order and avoid the need to defend it in court. If the government believes the gag order should stay in place, the court conducts a review. If it determines that the gag order is no longer justified, the court lifts the gag order.

Twitter is committed to continuing to use the legal mechanism available to us to request judicial review of these gag orders. More broadly, we are also committed to arguing that indefinite non-disclosure orders are unconstitutional in both the criminal and national security contexts. We view each request for judicial review as an opportunity to strengthen the legal precedent protecting our First Amendment rights.

Twitter v. Barr
As in past reports, Twitter is not reporting on any other national security process we may have received because of our ongoing objections to the limitations imposed on us by the U.S. government. We continue to litigate this issue in our case Twitter v. Barr. In September 2017, the government filed a motion for reconsideration of the court’s July 2017 denial of the government’s motion for summary judgment on Twitter’s claims. In November 2017, the court denied the government’s motion for reconsideration, thereby reaffirming its earlier summary judgment decision and confirming that the government’s factual submissions to date had not satisfied strict scrutiny under governing First Amendment precedent.

On February 12, 2018, the court also largely overruled the government’s objections to Twitter’s requests for discovery and compelled the government to produce to Twitter various categories of non-classified information related to the government’s justification for its classification of portions of Twitter’s 2014 draft Transparency Report. Discovery is ongoing.

On March 15, 2019, the government filed a motion asserting that, if the court did not deny Twitter's request for discovery of allegedly classified information, the government would assert the state secrets privilege over such information, as well as over the information that Twitter seeks to publish, which, they argue, would prevent the case from proceeding. Twitter strongly disagrees with the government's position and intends to vigorously defend against this motion and the assertion of the state secrets privilege. We will continue to fight for meaningful transparency through this and other efforts, and look forward to sharing more updates here as they become available.

‘Number of NSLs - government initiated review’:

• This is the number of National Security Letters (NSLs) received during the year indicated for which the U.S. government initiated their internal review processes, determined the non-disclosure order was no longer justified or necessary, and accordingly notified Twitter that the gag order was lifted.

‘Number of NSLs- provider requested review’:

• This is the number of National Security Letters (NSLs) received during the year indicated for which Twitter notified the government of a request for judicial review of the non-disclosure order, and the gag order was lifted.

• These numbers would not reflect NSLs for which Twitter requested judicial review but a court determined there is an ongoing non-disclosure obligation at the time of this publication.

NOTE: The data in these reports is as accurate and comprehensive as possible.