Wikimedia Foundation Transparency Report/December 2016/Requests for User Data

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Freedom of speech is essential to the Wikimedia movement—our projects cannot flourish in an ecosystem where individuals cannot speak freely. Our users trust us to protect their identities against unlawful disclosure and we take this responsibility seriously.

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However, every year, governments, individuals, and corporations ask us to disclose user data. Often, we have no nonpublic information to disclose because we collect little nonpublic information about users and retain that information for a short period of time. But when we do have data, we carefully evaluate every request before considering disclosure. If the requests do not meet our standards — if they are overly broad, unclear, or irrelevant — we will push back on behalf of our users.

If we must produce information due to a legally valid request, we will notify the affected user before we disclose, if we are legally permitted and have the means to do so. In certain cases, we may help find assistance for users to fight an invalid request.

The question of the right to privacy must be one of the defining issues of our time.'
— Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International, (2014)

JUL – DEC 2016

Total user data requests

13

JUL – DEC 2016

Percentage of times information produced

8%

Data


JUL – DEC 2016
Summary
Total number of requests	13
Informal Non-Government Requests	6
Informal Government Requests	5
Civil Subpoenas	1
Criminal Subpoenas	1
Administrative Subpoenas	0
Search Warrants	0
Court Orders	0
National Security Requests	0
Information Produced	1
User Accounts Potentially Affected	12,258
User Accounts Actually Affected	1
User Accounts Notified	0

Type of Information Requested

We divide the requests we receive by the type of information requested: “content” or “non-content.”

Most content information on the Wikimedia projects is the public content of articles and project pages; “non-content” information refers to information such as IP addresses or user agent information. The distinction comes from the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, or ECPA. Please see our FAQ for more information.

JUL – DEC 2016

Content requests

0%

JUL – DEC 2016

Non-content requests

100%

Company	Requests received	Requests granted

JUL – DEC 2016
Compared to other companies, we received relatively few requests^[1]
Facebook	59,229	41,424
Google	44,943	28,763
Twitter	5,676	3,916
LinkedIn	145	89
Wikimedia	13	0
↑ Due to the inconsistent release dates across different organizations, comparison data for the period covered by this report (January - June 2016) was not available, so we are presenting the comparison data above for July 2015 - December 2015. Please also note that figures for Wikimedia include additional types of requests for user data that are not included in the other organizations' figures. See the FAQ for more details.

By request type:

JUL – DEC 2016
Requests for user data, and how we responded
	Received	All	Partial
Informal non-government requests	6	0	0
Informal government requests	5	0	0
Civil subpoenas	1	0	0
Court orders	0	0	0
Criminal subpoenas	1	0	1
Administrative subpoenas	0	0	0
Search warrants	0	0	0
By country:
United Kingdom	3	0	0
United States	3	0	1
Korea	2	0	0
Australia	1	0	0
Croatia	1	0	0
France	1	0	0
India	1	0	0
Unknown	1	0	0

Informal Government Requests	Total	6

JUL – DEC 2016
Government requests breakdown
United Kingdom	Local Police	2
Australia	State Police	1
India	State Police	1
Korea	Local Police	1
United States	Federal law enforcement	1

Preservation Requests

Occasionally, we receive a preservation request from the U.S. government under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act . A preservation request is an order to retain information that would otherwise be deleted, anonymized, or aggregated within 90 days, according to our Data Retention Guidelines. If we receive one of these requests, we are legally required to retain the specific information indicated. However, we will not turn this information over to the requesting party unless they subsequently follow our Requests for User Information Procedures & Guidelines, and obtain a legal order, such as a subpoena or warrant, for the information in question.

Here, we provide the number of new preservation requests we received during the period covered by this report.

JUL - DEC 2016
Total Preservation Requests	1

[1] Due to the inconsistent release dates across different organizations, comparison data for the period covered by this report (January - June 2016) was not available, so we are presenting the comparison data above for July 2015 - December 2015. Please also note that figures for Wikimedia include additional types of requests for user data that are not included in the other organizations' figures. See the FAQ for more details.

[1]