Microsoft expands transparency report to include details of revenge porn removal requests

Today on its Transparency Hub, Microsoft published the latest of its transparency reports. This time around the report has been expanded to include details of revenge porn removal requests, in addition to the usual information about FISA orders, and other content removal requests from law enforcement agencies.

In keeping with previous reports, this one shows that the United States, United Kingdom, Turkey, France and Germany are collectively responsible for the vast majority (76.8 percent) of content removal requests. While Microsoft is still not able to report exact figures when it comes to FISA requests and National Security Letters, the USA Freedom Act means that the numbers can be revealed "in narrower ranges of bands of 500 versus 1,000".

The report covers the second half of 2015, and shows an increase in the number of data requests from the previous six months -- up from 35,228 to 39,083. Despite the seemingly high number of requests, Microsoft reiterates that it never hands over customer information without a warrant or court order, pointing out that only 2 percent of requests result in data being handed over.

Announcing the availability of the new reports, Microsoft's Director of Corporate Responsibility, Steve Lippman said:

We believe transparency is an important part of building trust in technology. The information contained in these reports and the detailed FAQ that we publish on our processes is intended to help our customers and stakeholders understand more about what we do, and the kind of information governments around the world request. We hope this transparency can contribute to the broader public discussion around the world on the kind of laws that should govern modern technology. Just as we've added additional data to today's reports, we'll continue to look for other ways to increase transparency.

The banding used for reporting FISA requests yields the following data:

• There were 0-499 FISA Orders seeking disclosure of content impacting 15,500-15,999 accounts. In the previous period these figures were 0-999 FISA Orders about 18,000-18,999 accounts.
• There were 0-499 National Security Letters, compared to 0-999 in the previous period.

You can check out the full transparency report at Microsoft's Transparency Hub.

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