Online privacy is quickly becoming a hot topic in the political spectrum. Debates on government’s role in protecting individuals privacy are more heated than ever. To better support the pro-privacy users, online companies have been releasing privacy reports to let their customer’s know exactly what their information is being used for. The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports on the latest company to do so:
Twitter has released its Transparency Report, modeled after Google’s, to demonstrate its commitment to “hold governments accountable, especially on behalf of those who may not have a chance to do so themselves.” The data — which spans from Jan. 1 to July 1 of this year — provides some heretofore unseen, juicy details on how many user information requests the social media company received from governments around the world, along with some reporting on how often those requests were honored. There’s also information on the total number of court orders seeking content removal, plus a tally of copyright takedown requests. First, a nod of approval: Kudos on letting the sun shine in, Twitter!
This kind of transparency is needed now more than ever. Google’s own Transparency Report, which spans from July to December of 2011, reveals a 37 percent spike in U.S. government requests for users’ private data as compared to the previous year.
