Snapchat got more than 400 government user data requests

Mike Snider | USA TODAY

Snapchat has released its first transparency report cataloging requests for user data information from law enforcement.

Overall, the photo messaging app received 403 government requests for user information -- 375 from U.S. law enforcement and 28 from other international governments, according to its report.

The company says that in July it will begin issuing a full report every six months, but "in the interest of transparency, we figured why wait until we had a full six months of data before publishing our first Transparency Report."

This early report covers requests received from Nov. 1, 2014 to Feb. 28, 2015. Among the U.S. requests, most were search warrants (172) and subpeonas (159). Snapchat complied with requests 92% of the time.

That's a higher compliance rate with requests from the U.S. government than other tech companies have reported recently: Google (84%), Twitter (80%) and Facebook (79%).

Snapchat compliance with international reports was much lower. The most requests came from the U.K. (10) and France (9), with Snapchat only complying with 33% of U.K. emergency requests and no others from the countries.

The new report will cover governmental requests for users' account information, demands to remove content, and requests to take down content for alleged copyright violations, Snapchat says. "While the vast majority of Snapchatters use Snapchat for fun, it's important that law enforcement is able to investigate illegal activity," it said in a blog post. "We want to be clear that we comply with valid legal requests."

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