Verizon Says U.S. Government Data Requests Hit 320,000
By Nick Turner - Jan 22, 2014
Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), publishing its first annual report on law-enforcement requests for customer information, said it received 320,000 inquiries from federal, state and local authorities in the U.S. last year.
Of the requests for customer data, more than 164,000 were subpoenas, while almost 71,000 were court orders, New York-based Verizon said in the report. Most of the inquiries pertained to consumers, rather than corporate customers. The total number climbed from 2012, the company said, without specifying the year-earlier figure.
“We do not release customer information unless authorized by law, such as a valid law enforcement demand or an appropriate request in an emergency involving the danger of death or serious physical injury,” Verizon said.
The report follows an uproar set off by the leaks of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who sparked an international debate about privacy and the reach of government in the post-Sept. 11 world. Verizon announced last year that it would start publishing the number of requests it receives in an effort to boost transparency.
Verizon’s numbers suggest that agencies still lean more heavily on phone-service providers than Internet companies for information. Google Inc., operator of the world’s largest search engine, received fewer than 11,000 requests for user data from the U.S. government in the first six months of 2013.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-22/verizon-says-government-data-requests-rose-to-320-000-last-year.html