US judge: companies don’t have to silence requests for user data

A US judge has ruled that technology companies such as Facebook and Twitter can tell their users if there is a request from the government for user data. The government may only impose a duty of confidentiality if there is a good reason for it.

That ruling comes from Judge James Orenstein in a case brought by the US government, The Wall Street Journal reported. The authorities wanted to force technology companies to keep quiet about requests for data from users in 15 different cases. Two of those cases involved Facebook users, but the other companies involved in the case have not been made public. It has also not been made public what the data requests were about.

According to Orenstein, the government must have compelling reasons to be able to impose a duty of confidentiality on companies. That was not the case in this case; the authorities were unable to explain sufficiently why the tech companies should not say anything to their users, when they need to explain why an investigation could be compromised by disclosing the data request.

The case is also important for Microsoft, which last month filed a case against the US government over its confidentiality obligation on data requests. According to the Redmond company, the constitutional rights of companies and citizens are being violated when imposing such obligations of silence on requests for personal data.