Snowden Reaction?: Verizon, ‘Committed to Privacy,’ Will Disclose Police Requests for Customer Info

Verizon says it will begin filing two reports per year that detail the requests that law enforcement makes for its customers’ data both at home and abroad.

Verizon is committed to our customers privacy, and we do not sell information that individually identifies our customers to third parties without our customers consent,” said Randal S. Milch, executive vice president, public policy, and general counsel Verizon, in a news release. “All companies are required to provide information to government agencies in certain circumstances, however, and this new report is intended to provide more transparency about law enforcement requests. Although we have a legal obligation to provide customer information to law enforcement in response to lawful demands, we take seriously our duty to provide such information only when authorized by law. We have released the lions share of this data for the past two years, and we are taking this step to make this information more consistently and easily available.”

Just a month ago, shareholders at both Verizon and AT&T, were quite vocal about the need for such reports. This all comes on the heels of the scandal involving NSA leaker Edward Snowden, who revealed that the Agency was collecting information on millions of calls placed both to domestic and international locations.

Verizon says it’s trying to be more transparent. The twice-a-year reports will reveal how many requests have been made by authorities in criminal cases, but it won’t include data about other national security-related requests, The Wall Street Journal noted.

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