United States national security requests for user information

In this US national security requests report, we separately report requests from US authorities using national security laws because these laws restrict how much information companies like us are allowed to share, and when we are allowed to share it. In cases of national security, the US government can use the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to request non-content and content information, and use National Security Letters (NSLs) to request limited information about a user’s identity.

Non-content requests under FISA

A FISA request can include non-content metadata—for example, the "from" and "to" fields in an email header and the IP addresses associated with a particular account.

Content requests under FISA

A FISA request can include a demand for a user’s content, such as Gmail messages, documents, photos, and videos.

Requests made via National Security Letters (NSL)

Requests by reporting period

Using a NSL, the FBI can seek "the name, address, length of service, and local and long distance toll billing records" of a subscriber to a wire or electronic communications service. The FBI can't use NSLs to obtain anything else from Google, such as Gmail content, search queries, YouTube videos or user IP addresses.

A list of National Security Letters issued to Google

We publish each NSL after we’re free of any nondisclosure obligations imposed by litigation or legislation. We share as much of each letter as possible taking into account the privacy interests of affected users. We also publish the letters that reflect the lifting of any nondisclosure restrictions.

How Google handles US national security requests for user information

We apply a consistent policy towards requests for user information regardless of the type of the request. In other words, requests reported in the Global report and here undergo the same scrutiny. We carefully review each request to make sure it satisfies applicable laws. If a request asks for too much information, we try to narrow it, and in some cases we object to producing any information at all. You can see the full policy at policies.google.com/terms/information-requests

Our FAQs provide more information about FISA and NSLs