United States

• Alabama (26)
• Alaska (9)
• Arizona (43)
• Arkansas (6)
• California (313)
• Colorado (10)
• Connecticut (13)
• Delaware (7)
• Florida (89)
• Georgia (43)
• Guam (0)
• Hawaii (4)
• Idaho (4)
• Illinois (149)
• Indiana (29)
• Iowa (10)
• Kansas (4)
• Kentucky (15)

• Louisiana (10)
• Maine (2)
• Maryland (62)
• Massachusetts (57)
• Michigan (50)
• Minnesota (61)
• Mississippi (3)
• Missouri (23)
• Montana (3)
• Nebraska (7)
• Nevada (13)
• New Hampshire (5)
• New Jersey (82)
• New Mexico (5)
• New York (409)
• North Carolina (61)
• North Dakota (2)
• Ohio (50)

• Oklahoma (5)
• Oregon (3)
• Pennsylvania (60)
• Puerto Rico (13)
• Rhode Island (1)
• South Carolina (6)
• South Dakota (6)
• Tennessee (9)
• Texas (123)
• Utah (5)
• Vermont (2)
• Virginia (431)
• Washington (27)
• Washington, D.C. (278*)
• West Virginia (4)
• Wisconsin (19)
• Wyoming (1)

Subpoenas

• Subpoenas are the most common form of legal process issued under the Stored Communications Act; they do not generally require a judge’s sign-off and usually seek basic subscriber information, such as the email address associated with an account and IP logs.

Court orders

• Unlike subpoenas, court orders must be issued by an appropriate court and signed by a judge.

Search warrants

• As prescribed by the Fourth Amendment, warrants typically require the most judicial scrutiny before they are issued, including a showing of probable cause and a judge’s signature. A properly executed warrant is required for the disclosure of the contents of communications (e.g., Tweets, DMs). 

Other

• Requests from law enforcement that do not fall in any of the above categories. Examples include exigent emergency disclosure requests (which we now breakout in the table above) and other requests received for account information without valid legal process.

Mutual legal assistance treaty requests

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

• 2015: Jul 1 - Dec 31: 8% of court orders and 1% of search warrants received have been explicitly identified as having been issued through MLAT procedures, coming from 12 different countries.
• Identified countries: Belgium, Canada, Chile, France, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and Turkey.
• 21% of MLAT requests received originated from the Netherlands.
• 2015: Jan 1 - Jun 30: 13% of court orders received have been explicitly identified as having been issued through MLAT procedures, coming from 8 different countries.
• Identified countries: Argentina, Canada, Chile, Finland, Germany, Greece, India, Netherlands, and Spain.

• 2014: July 1 - Dec 31: 6% of court orders/warrants received have been explicitly identified as having been issued through MLAT procedures, coming from 8 different countries.
• Identified countries: Canada, Estonia, Lebanon, Netherlands, Peru, and Turkey; 39% of all identified MLATs originated from the Netherlands.
• 2014: Jan 1 - Jun 30: 18% of court orders received have been explicitly identified as having been issued through MLAT procedures, coming from 10 different countries.
• 2013: Jul 1 - Dec 31: 1% of court orders received have been explicitly identified as having been issued through MLAT procedures, coming from 5 different countries.
• 2013: Jan 1 - Jun 30: 1% of court orders received have been explicitly identified as having been issued through MLAT procedures, coming from 8 different countries.

Pen register / trap and trace orders

Originally developed to obtain phone numbers from telco providers, a pen register / trap and trace (PRTT) order (in the context of Twitter) provides law enforcement with legal authority to obtain IP address records from the account identified in the order, generally for 60 days.

• 2015: Jul 1 - Dec 31: 11% of court orders received were PRTT orders.
• 2015: Jan 1 - Jun 30: 11% of court orders received were PRTT orders.
• 2014: Jul 1 - Dec 31: 13% of court orders received were PRTT orders.
• 2014: Jan 1 - Jun 30: 8% of court orders received were PRTT orders.
• 2013: Jul 1 - Dec 31: < 1% of court orders received were PRTT orders.
• 2013: Jan 1 - Jun 30: 5% of court orders received were PRTT orders.

Percentage of requests under seal:

• ‘Under seal’ means that a court has issued an order legally prohibiting us from notifying affected users (or anyone else) about the request. 
• If the order does not specify an end date for the period during which Twitter is legally barred from providing notice to our subscriber(s), we may request an amended order with a specified duration (e.g., 90 days). 

Percentage where user notice provided:

• When not prohibited or under an exception to our notice policy, we send affected users notice of our receipt of a request for their information, including a copy of the legal process.

Percentage of requests not under seal and no notice provided for one or more of the following reasons:

• The request was withdrawn by the requester prior to any disclosure.
• No information was disclosed in response to the request.
• The request was defective (e.g., improper jurisdiction, no valid Twitter @username), thus no action was taken and no information disclosed.
• The request was an exigent emergency disclosure request; see our Guidelines for Law Enforcement for more about emergencies.
• Local law may prohibit us from providing notice.