Trust and safety

LinkedIn’s Transparency Report about Government Requests for Member Data: First Half of 2016

Today we’re releasing our semiannual Transparency Report, in keeping with our continued commitment of transparency to our members. The report provides the number of government requests for member data LinkedIn processed from January through June of 2016. We saw a slight increase in the total number of government requests received compared to the previous period (145 total requests worldwide, compared to the 139 from the second half of 2015).

Our commitment to members led us to work with the Global Network Initiative (GNI) and undergo a comprehensive, independent assessment of our practices surrounding privacy and freedom of expression. In July, GNI’s board of directors announced that, based on a detailed evaluation of the assessment, LinkedIn was compliant with the GNI’s principles. The full report on LinkedIn’s assessment is available here.

Along with our peers, we have noticed a large number of requests being accompanied by nondisclosure (or “gag”) orders, as compared to previous reporting periods. These orders limit our ability to be transparent and override our policy to let affected members know of any government requests concerning their accounts. Recently, we joined an amicus brief, along with a number of other technology companies including Amazon, Google, and others, in support of a challenge raised by Microsoft to the current use of nondisclosure orders.