Law Enforcement and Government Data Requests

2017 Transparency Report

In General

As part of official investigations, law enforcement agencies and other governmental officials (e.g., an Office of a District Attorney) sometimes request certain information from technology services providers. This LinkNYC Transparency Report is intended to provide our users with an understanding of the number of valid requests we receive from law enforcement and governmental entities, and how we handle them.

Our Requirements

We require a valid subpoena, court order, or other valid legal demand in order to process a governmental information request. While we are legally obligated to respond to lawful requests for customer-related information, we are also committed to protecting our customers’ privacy. We carefully review all legal requests we receive and actively push back on requests that are procedurally deficient, overly-broad, or otherwise improper or invalid.

Data Requests and Responsive Disclosures

Generally, government requests are made pursuant to a criminal investigation. In many cases, we produce only some or none of the information requested, either because we do not have it, or because we do not believe the request is valid. The table below lays out the number of valid data requests we received, and of those requests, how often we disclosed at least some information.

Please review our Privacy Policy and FAQs for specific information about how information is treated, our user notification policies, and our obligations to respond to information requests.