Amazon logo (Photo : Reuters)
Amazon Inc. became the last major tech company on the Fortune 500 to release a transparency report. In a Friday blog post it included statistics about user data requests, while claiming consumer privacy advocacy.
The long delay could have been due to the Amazon company providing cloud computing services to United States intelligence agencies. It supports 17 U.S. agencies.
Amazon stated in the blog post that it will now address transparency issues in annual reports. The tech giant also included various legal disclaimers, such as it does not release customer information unless law enforcement requires it.
Amazon noted in its transparency report that the company received a grand total of 813 court-ordered subpoenas. That was from January 1 to May 31.
The technology company fulfilled the requests of exactly two-thirds (542) of the requests to appear in a court of law. It also partially fulfilled 126 of the legal documents.
In terms of search warrants, Amazon received 25 of them, and took action on 13, according to PC Mag. It also made 8 partial responses.
Amazon Inc. only listed a range of national security requests, unable to release the exact figure due to legal restrictions. This followed an NSA surveillance scandal that resulted in a compromise with the Justice Department.
Finally, Amazon received 132 legal requests that were not from the U.S. government, and fully complied with 108 of them. Further details were not included in the report.
Stephen Schmidt, Amazon Web Services CISO, wrote that Amazon takes actions to provide customer protection when it is needed. It has challenged "overboard" government subpoenas.
For example, Amazon has set various legal standards regarding free speech and privacy laws. This supported consumer advocacy.
The technology company encouraged the U.S. Congress to pass legislation regarding customer communications. Such updated laws would require law enforcement to secure a court-issued search warrant in order to obtain such personal content.
Amazon was never under legal obligation to report user data requests, according to ZDNet. However, such reports are now an industry standard.
Amazon Inc.'s second bi-annual transparency report will likely be released in late 2015 or early next year.
