LinkedIn’s Transparency Report about Government Requests for Member Data: Second Half of 2015

Today we are releasing our Transparency Report, which covers government requests for data received by LinkedIn companies from July through December of 2015. You can read the full report here.

We publish this report twice a year as part of LinkedIn’s ongoing transparency commitment to our members. Since the publication of our first transparency report in 2011, we have sought to provide our members with information about the law enforcement requests we receive for member data and our responses to those requests.

The portion of our member base impacted by law enforcement requests has been relatively constant. In this Transparency Report, we see an uptick in the total number of requests received (we received 134 requests in the second half of 2015, 112 requests in the first half of 2015 and 100 requests in the second half of 2014). Overall, this was the highest number of requests for member data LinkedIn has received during a six-month window, with the greatest increase coming from requests originating in the United States. This overall increase is not unique to LinkedIn, and is similar to other online services.

LinkedIn complies with properly served legal requests for member information from law enforcement agencies. When we do so, we scrutinize each and every request we receive, notify each affected member whenever the law permits, and work to ensure that requests for our members' information are not overly broad and are consistent with internationally recognized human rights laws and standards. We also continue to engage in public policy advocacy to protect our members' data. For example, we oppose all forced backdoor access to our members' data and continue to participate in issues affecting our broader community. Particularly relevant today, we filed an amicus brief in support of Apple in their ongoing dispute with the FBI over developing a compelled workaround to Apple's encryption software.