US Authorities Sent 136,000 Demands for Verizon Customer Data in First Half of 2016

U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement agencies sent nearly 136,000 subpoenas, orders, warrants and emergency requests for data about Verizon's customers during the first half of 2016, the telco reported Wednesday in a transparency report. That was about 9 percent fewer than Verizon received in the first half of 2015 from U.S. authorities. The carrier received more than 67,000 subpoenas, about 33,000 general and wiretap orders and pen registers, nearly 12,000 warrants and more than 23,000 emergency requests. Outside the U.S., the company said it received more than 1,200 demands in the first six months of this year -- slightly down from the same period last year -- from Belgium, France, Germany and other countries for customer names, addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses or transactional information like a log of numbers called. Verizon General Counsel Craig Silliman in a blog post said "importantly" none of the U.S. demands sought customer data stored in overseas data centers. He cited the significance of Microsoft's court win last week against the U.S. government, which sought information about a customer in the company's Ireland data center (see 1607140071). Verizon filed an amicus brief in that case "to ensure that our customers outside the United States have confidence that the U.S. government cannot compel Verizon to turn over their data stored in our overseas data centers," wrote Silliman. He touted congressional legislation called the International Communications Protection Act (see 1605250050) that would help limit the government's reach. ICPA would allow the government to get data on a U.S. citizen or resident with a warrant regardless of where it's stored, requiring the U.S. to use the mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) process to get information about non-U.S. persons stored overseas, said Silliman. The process is considered laborious and ICPA would streamline it, he said. DOJ last week unveiled a legislative proposal for a model bilateral agreement that would essentially bypass the MLAT process in certain circumstances (see 1607180026).