AT&T, in their very first transparency report, stated that it received no less than 2,000 National Security Letters and about 38,000 demands for location data on its customers in 2013.
This report is the most recent within a expanding list of transparency from telecom companies, Web providers and mobile phone providers who’ve been pressured from privacy supporters and security experts within the wake of the Edward Snowden NSA leaks. Telecoms have been resistant against supplying this data in the past and it’s only within the last month or so, since the Department of Justice relaxed its limitations on what companies can report.
“We take our responsibility to protect your information and privacy very seriously, and we pledge to continue to do so to the fullest extent possible and always in compliance with the law of the country where the relevant service is provided. Like all companies, we must provide information to government and law enforcement agencies to comply with court orders, subpoenas, lawful discovery requests and other legal requirements. We ensure that these requests are valid and that our responses comply with the law and our own policies,” AT&T mentioned in the report. “Interest in this topic has increased in the last year. As you might expect, we may make adjustments to our reporting processes and create ways to track forms of demands in the future.”
With the 301,000 total criminal and civil demands from United States agencies that AT&T been given in 2013, the organization only rejected or questioned about 3,700 of these and supplied incomplete or no information in about 13,700 cases.
Remember, the FISA request information within the AT&T report only includes the initial six months of 2013, per the Department of Justice restrictions.
