Twitter Will Give You Up to the Cops 75% of the Time
If you are constantly tweeting, you should at least know about your Twitter privacy rights. And let's just say be careful what you tweet (and where you surf) if you plan on committing a crime.
American law enforcement officials are turning to Twitter more and more for incriminating evidence against you. And the information they get is much more than just what you tweet.
According to the company, U.S. law enforcement officials made 679 requests for information from the micro-blogging site in the first half of 2012, and the company granted the information 75% of the time, reports the Los Angeles Times. But it's not these numbers that are most shocking.
If you have a Twitter account but don't really tweet, you may think it's fine that law enforcement officials are snooping around. However, Twitter keeps track of (and turns over) much more data than simply what you write in 144 characters. Instead, the company keeps logs of your location, IP addresses, search terms, pages visited, and also any third-party website you visit with a Twitter button on them, reports the Times.
As almost every website now has a Twitter button on it now (look down, there's a Twitter button on this page too), your local enforcement agency can simply request a copy of all your web surfing by contacting Twitter. And the company will turn over the data 75% of the time.
So are you ready to consider your Twitter privacy rights now? When you're tweeting away, you basically have no rights to privacy. After all, you signed up to broadcast all your mundane thoughts to the world. Now you know that, at the very least, the government is listening.
Related Resources:
- Judge orders Twitter to turn over Occupy protester's tweets (CNN)
- Hollaback Allows Women to Shame Street Harassers via Smartphones (FindLaw's Technologist)
- Apple Settles China iPad Trademark Feud for $60M (FindLaw's Technologist)