Silk Transparency Project – “An increasing number of Internet and telecommunication companies are publishing reports detailing the number of government requests for user interaction data the companies have received in a given period of time. Technology and telecommunications companies store data on all user interactions. This includes “non-content data” (also called metadata). Metadata consists of login times, user location and IP addresses of users involved in the communication. Technology and telecom companies sometimes store actual content  — recordings or copies  of emails, chats, video chats, and voice calls.  Governments file requests for this data for anti-terrorism surveillance but also for drug investigations and other law enforcement purposes.  Called “Transparency Reports”, these reports also state how often the company complies with the government request. Silk collected all Transparency Reports from major service providers  and normalized them into a comprehensive data resource for investigating government requests for users’ data. You can Explore the different Country / Company / Reporting Period pages to research specific queries  or click here for our findings on:

• Governments of the World Requesting Data: USA Leads in Total Requests
• Governments Requests at Peak Levels: More Companies Respond by Publishing Transparency Reports
• The Most Compliant Service Providers
• World’s Most Inquisitive Governments, Most Compliant Companies.“