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.
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.
Below, you will find more information about the requests for user data we receive.
We need to codify our values and build consensus around what we want from a free society and a free Internet. We need to put into law protections for our privacy and our right to speak and assemble.
Compared to other companies, we received relatively few requests[1]
Company
Requests received
Requests granted
Facebook
46.710
31.691
Google
40.677
26.033
Twitter
5.560
3.558
LinkedIn
139
91
Wikimedia
25
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.
Germany
United States
Australia
Austria
Brazil
France
India
Italy
United Kingdom