Verizon received a grand total of 321,545 requests for customers' data from American law enforcement in 2013, according to the company's first-ever transparency report, published on Wednesday.
Verizon is the first major U.S. telephone provider to release this kind of data, roughly two weeks after CREDO Mobile, a small California cellphone carrier, disclosed that it had received 16 data requests from the U.S. government in its own transparency report.
See also: Google Reports 68% Spike in Government Censorship Requests
Previously, the major cellphone companies had only disclosed a limited amount of data, answering a series of questions from Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in December 2013.
Verizon's report comes more than seven months after the first revelations of far-reaching NSA surveillance programs started coming out, in classified documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
In the wake of these revelations, tech giants like Google and Apple have been pushing for the ability to be more transparent, to prove they weren't wantonly handing over customer data the U.S. government. Telecom companies, on the other hand, remained largely silent.
The report covers requests coming from federal, state or local law enforcement agencies in the United States, but it's not completely transparent. The total number does not include any national security-related requests, such as those generated by the NSA. Companies can't disclose how many of these they received due to the gag order attached to any court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The report, however, does include some information on another controversial U.S. government practice: National Security Letters. NSLs are often used by the FBI to investigate national security matters, and are unusual in that they carry a restrictive gag order than prevents the recipients of the letter from disclosing their existence.
Verizon reports that it received between 1,000 and 1,999 NSLs last year. Due to restrictions imposed by the U.S. government, Verizon can't reveal the specific number of NSLs it actually received. Google was the first to ever reveal how many NSLs it receives. The search giant released numbers in ranges as well.
Half of the data requests received by Verizon are in the form of a subpoena, which doesn't require judicial intervention. In these cases, however, Verizon does not release the content of communications, but just metadata like the customer name, address, telephone number, or phone records.
Verizon also received 70,000 court orders (of which 1,496 were wiretaps), 36,696 warrants, and approximately 50,000 emergency requests (expedited request involving imminent danger).
The company said it doesn't keep a tally of how many government data requests resulted in a response. But Verizon says it will for its next reports, which will be released twice a year going forward.
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