Snapchat Releases Its First Transparency Report

Snapchat has joined the roster of tech companies that are releasing information on government data requests. Today on its blog, the service announced the arrival of its first Transparency Report, which lays out numbers on the data requests it has received from governments located around the globe, as well as the types of requests these numbers represent. In addition, Snapchat has said it will be releasing new transparency reports bi-annually. As with other companies, there are some limitations on what it is allowed to report and when it can release certain info.

Not surprisingly, the majority of requests were received from the United States government. Right now, Snapchat cannot release information on National Security Requests due to a six-month delay requirement when reporting on these numbers. Those aside, the majority of data requests came in the form of search warrants — 172 of them, to be exact, affecting 286 accounts. Of those, 96-percent had some data released.

The next highest amount came in the form of subpoenas — a total of 159 affecting 326 accounts (89-percent had some data produced). There were no pen register orders, 24 court orders, 20 emergency data requests, 0 wire tap orders, 0 NSL requests, 0 content removal orders, and 0 DCMA takedown notices. This covers the period from November 1, 2014 to February of this year.

As for foreign government data requests, there weren't many received, with a total of 28-percent coming in from 9 countries (shown in the graph above). Requests from four countries didn't result in any data being handed over, while a trio of emergency request from Canada, one from Belgium, and one from Norway had 100-percent of data handed over. Three emergency requests from the UK only resulted in 33-percent of data being produced.

SOURCE: Snapchat