As it continues to grow, ephemeral messaging app Snapchat is receiving an increasing number of government requests for user data.
On Tuesday, the Venice, Calif. company published is latest report on these requests, which it does every six months. Between July 1 and December 31, 2015, Snapchat has received a total of 862 criminal legal requests from the U.S. government entities, up from 761 in the six months before that. In 80% of the cases, Snapchat produced requested data, according to the report. Most of the requests were in the form of subpoenas and search warrants.
During the same period of time, it also received 22 emergency requests and 66 other requests from government entities outside of the U.S., though no data was produced for the requests in the latter group. Agencies from the U.K. made 15 of the emergencies, though it’s not clear why it significantly increased from the mere six requests during the prior period beyond the fact that it’s Snapchat’s second biggest market after the U.S.
As for requests to take down copyrighted content, the company received seven during those six months, and complied with all of them, it says.
Though Snapchat receives a much smaller number of requests than larger and older companies like Twitter and Facebook, that number is growing since the company’s first report in early 2015. And while it complied with requests at a higher rate than other companies at the time, that rate is decreasing.
An earlier version misstated that government requests have more than doubled since Snapchat’s first report. The story has been corrected.
