eDiscovery Daily Blog

• July 16, 2014

Yesterday, we talked about LinkedIn’s Privacy and Law Enforcement Data Request Guidelines.  Like Twitter and other social media companies, LinkedIn also discloses a semi-annual Transparency Report to inform the public of the frequency and type of government requests the company receives regarding member data.  Let’s take a look.

With regards to the reporting, it’s worth noting that LinkedIn and other web-based companies cannot be fully transparent because of restrictions imposed on disclosing the number of national security-related requests received from the U.S. government. In A Letter to the LinkedIn Community, Erika Rottenberg, the Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of LinkedIn, explains that, “we have been expressly prohibited by the U.S. government from disclosing the number of U.S. national security-related requests we receive, if any. This prohibition, which limits our ability to provide the transparency that we think our members and the public deserve, has been the source of great disappointment and frustration to us.”

In September 2013, LinkedIn filed legal challenges seeking the right to provide greater transparency into the number of national security-related requests they receive from the U.S. government. And last December they released, along with other technology companies, government surveillance reform principles that highlight government request transparency as a key part of necessary reform. In response to the legal challenges and advocacy of LinkedIn and other technology companies, the U.S. government officially changed its policy regarding the reporting of national security-related requests on January 27, 2014, to increase transparency (detailed in the articleGoogle, Yahoo and Linkedin disclose details on US National Security requests).

So, the Transparency Report isn’t as transparent as LinkedIn (and other providers) would like, but it’s better.

With that in mind, in the latest Transparency Report, covering the second half of 2013, there were 72 government requests for member data globally reported, with 56 of those (78%) coming from the US.   Requests actually dropped 13% from the first half of 2013 (from 83 to 72 globally and from 70 to 56 in the US – 20% drop).  Those requests impacted 110 member accounts globally, 90 of which were in the US (82%).  While requests dropped in the second half of 2013, the accounts affected rose from 97 to 110 (13% rise) globally and from 84 to 90 in the US (7%).  LinkedIn provides stats for the last two years on government requests for member data and member accounts impacted (at six month intervals).  In the most recent six months, LinkedIn provided data in response to overall requests 47% of the time (61% of the time to US requests).

Next week, we will take a look at Facebook’s policies and transparency.

So, what do you think?  Have you ever request information from LinkedIn for discovery purposes?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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