Dropbox this week announced, not long after it was given the go-ahead from the U.S. Justice Department, how many national security requests for data it has been handed. Sort of. Because there’s always a caveat or two. In late January, the Justice Dept. loosened the restrictions on Silicon Valley companies disclosing government surveillance requests that are at least six-months old under the guise of “national security.”
Dropbox yesterday released a new set of principles that explain how it deals with government requests for customer data. The principles were a companion to its 2013 Transparency Report, which for the first time included National Security Letter requests made to the file hosting service. “We believe everyone has a right to know how much information the government is seeking from online services,” Dropbox legal counsel Bart Volkmer. “This lets users fight back against improper requests, helps prevent abuses of power, and allows for a more informed public debate.”
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