Andy Kaplan-Myrth📢 Today, TekSavvy published a Quarterly Transparency Report about requests we got from police and how we handled them.
Today, we’re reporting on October to December, 2024 and as usual, I’m summarizing that report here 🧵👇🏼
You can download the report at https://www.teksavvy.com/policies/legal-stuff/transparency-report/
The number of requests and disclosures in this report is average compared to most past reports. In Q4 2024, we got 49 requests and orders, compared to:
45 in Q2 2023
38 in Q3 2023
59 in Q4 2023
39 in Q1 2024
40 in Q2 2024
40 in Q3 2024
2/9
Requests from federal agencies remains low compared to past years, at 4. From 2020-23, the avg number of federal requests per Q was 25. The provincial number is high, at 44, extending the trend for the past year. We don't know why it's happening; maybe a change in police practices.
3/9
3/9
Since our disclosure rate is generally lower for prov than for fed requests, our overall disclosure rate is lower. From 2020-23, we disclosed information for ~91% of federal requests, but only 62% of prov'l. Why? Federal agencies act fast while we have logs, and rarely make informal requests.
4/9
4/9
There were 7 emergency requests this quarter, and we identified subscribers in all 7 cases. One of these was a disclosure to a foreign law enforcement agency. That's the first time we have ever disclosed customer information to a foreign agency; we did it this time because we judged it to be extremely serious and urgent. We also informed the customer that we had done so.
7 exigent requests is slightly above average. On average, we've got 6 per quarter. The max was 10 in Q1 of 2024.
5/9
We disclosed info to 1 "Administrative" agency. That's an agency that is not technically "law enforcement", but they had the legal authority to compel disclosure, i.e. we had to disclose the information. Administrative agencies are typically a tax agency or the CRTC's enforcement folks.
6/9
6/9
Moving on, this quarter, we made 2 proactive reports to law enforcement. These are rare, like when an agent overhears violence or a threat. It is never related to a customer's online activity; we do not track that. From our stats, we make proactive disclosures about five times per year.
7/9
7/9
Finally, as always: Sometimes our numbers don’t add up perfectly, or may not be totally complete, mostly because it's hard to perfectly keep track of every informal request, including so-called "jurisdiction requests". There may be small discrepancies in our numbers due to that.
8/9
8/9
TekSavvy is the only ISP in Canada (AFAIK) that publishes detailed information about how we handle requests from law enforcement. You can learn more from our Law Enforcement Guide, which includes what info we have about subscribers, and when we do or do not disclose it. https://www.teksavvy.com/policies/legal-stuff/law-enforcement-guide/
9/9
9/9