Transparency Report

Snapchat Transparency Reports are released twice a year. These reports provide important insight into the volume and nature of governmental requests for Snapchatters' account information and other legal notifications.

Since 2015, our policy has been to notify Snapchatters when we receive legal process seeking their account information, with exceptions for cases where we are legally prohibited from doing so, or when we believe there are exceptional circumstances (like child exploitation or an imminent risk of death or bodily injury).

At Snap, we support industry-wide efforts to improve content moderation reporting and transparency practices. We recognize that technology platforms facilitate content creation, sharing, and retention in vastly different ways. As our platform evolves, so too, will Snap Transparency Reports, laying the groundwork to publish new categories of information to inform our community in the future.

For more information about how we handle law enforcement data requests, please take a look at our Law Enforcement Guide, Privacy Policy, and Terms of Service.

United States Criminal Legal Requests

Requests for User Information pursuant to U.S. legal process.

International Government Information Requests

Requests for User Information from government entities outside the United States.

United States National Security Requests

Requests for User Information pursuant to national security legal process.

Governmental Content Removal Requests

This category identifies demands by a government entity to remove content that would otherwise be permissible under our Terms of Service or Community Guidelines.

Note: Although we do not formally track when we remove content that violates our policies when a request has been made by a governmental entity, we believe it is an extremely rare occurrence. When we believe it is necessary to restrict content that is deemed unlawful in a particular country, but does not otherwise violate our policies, we seek to restrict access to it geographically when possible, rather than remove it globally.

Copyrighted Content Takedown Notices (DMCA)

This category reflects any valid takedown notices we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

* “Account Identifiers” reflects the number of identifiers (e.g. username, email address, phone number, etc.) specified by law enforcement in legal process when requesting user information. Some legal process may include more than one identifier. In some instances, multiple identifiers may identify a single account. In instances where a single identifier is specified in multiple requests, each instance is included.