Amazon and Snapchat rank among the worst at protecting your data from government requests, according to a US privacy pressure group.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) publishes Who Has Your Back? report annually, analysing the activity of companies ordered to hand over sensitive user data in response to US government requests.

The report finds huge variation in the lengths technology companies will go to to protect their user user.

Nate Cardozo, a lawyer for EFF, said in a statement: "Snapchat joins AT&T and Comcast in failing to require a warrant for government access to the content of communications. That means the government can obtain extraordinarily sensitive information about your activities and communications without convincing a judge that there is probable cause to collect it.”

Snapchat was awarded one star out of six in the EFF’s report, solely for publishing guidelines for law enforcement requests. The ephemeral messaging service was recently reprimanded by the US Federal Trade Commission for the collection of personal data and false claims that messages "disappear forever".

A Snapchat spokeswoman said the company required search warrants, but that the ephemerality of the service meant that there was often no data to release.



Amazon was awarded two stars. It does, however, require a warrant to hand over user data, and was praised for repeatedly fighting in court to protect the privacy of its users’ book purchases. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.

Policy change after Snowden leaks

EFF also found that the Snowden revelations about government surveillance of data have prompted technology companies to increase their protection of user data.

As Rainey Reitman, activism director at EFF, put it: "The sunlight brought about by a year's worth of Snowden leaks appears to have prompted dozens of companies to improve their policies when it comes to giving user data to the government."

Last year’s report awarded two companies, Twitter and the US internet service provider Sonic, six stars covering warrant restrictions, transparency reports, fighting for user privacy rights in courts and lobbying the US government.

Praise for Apple and Yahoo

In 2014, a total of nine companies won a six-star rating, including Apple, Dropbox, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. Twitter was praised by EFF for fighting for the right to tell its users about government orders around the WikiLeaks investigation of 2010, according to EFF.

Both Apple and Yahoo were described as best improvers by the EFF, with Apple making “remarkable progress in every category” and Yahoo winning praise for fighting for user privacy in the US foreign intelligence surveillance court, which was revealed only in July 2013.

Facebook has also improved, jumping from one star in 2011 to six stars in 2014. Privacy of user data has become a focus for the social networking site in recent years – a turnaround from founder Mark Zuckerberg’s stance that privacy on the internet was dead.

The report’s findings were based on publicly available information on government data demands and transparency, excluding national security requests covered by a gag order and any non-public anti-surveillance measures companies may use.

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