Amazon Transparency Report: Company Responded To Record Number Of Government Requests

Amazon revealed in a recent transparency report that it turned over a record amount of customer data to the United States government in the first half of 2017 in response to requests from law enforcement agencies.

Between Jan. 1 through June 30, 2017, Amazon replied to at least in part to 1,200 subpoena requests, 189 search warrants and 76 other court orders. The company’s response represents a record amount of customer data turned over to the government.

In total, Amazon received 1,618 subpoenas, 229 search warrants and 89 other court orders during the first half of 2017. It fully complied with 42 percent of all subpoenas, 44 percent of search warrants and 52 percent of other court orders.

Amazon also reported receiving between zero and 249 national security requests—a controversial tool that allows law enforcement agencies to request information from companies by citing concerns about national security.

The requests, which typically come from the FBI, are typically used to demand the phone and email records of an individual user from tech companies. They have also been used to acquire IP addresses associated with the user and other electronic records, including browsing history and web records. The only piece of information that cannot be obtained are the contents of direct communications, which require a warrant.

The FBI typically uses the letters to compel or demand technology companies and phone and internet service providers to hand over information from their customers. In many cases, the letters are accompanied by a gag order that prevents the company in question from informing the subject of the request their information has been accessed by the government.

Amazon’s choice on how to classify the number of national security requests it received is controversial as it provides no information to its users about whether the company was actually compelled by law enforcement to surrender information. Companies cannot disclose the exact number of requests it has received but they are allowed to disclose if they have received at least one such request.

Choosing not to disclose any information about national security requests also breaks the trend that tech companies have taken recently in trying to fight back against the law enforcement tool. Last year, Apple published a gag order it received from the U.S. government and Microsoft also released a letter it received from the FBI .

Additionally, Amazon received 75 requests from non-U.S. entities—presumably foreign governments—seeking customer information. Amazon only provided a partial response to two of those requests and did not fully comply with any of them. Amazon did not provide any detail about what countries filed the requests.

Amazon reported that it did not receive any content removal requests during the period.

While Amazon did not provide any details about the types of requests for information that it received or complied with, the uptick in compliance coincides with the growth of the company’s voice assistant Alexa. Amazon has pushed back against law enforcement efforts to collect data from the devices but did provide recordings belonging to a suspect in a murder trial last year.

Amazon received a poor score from the Electronic Frontier Foundation in its annual “Who Has Your Back” ratings regarding how companies handle government data requests.