Social media company has received nearly triple the number of information requests from the US government between 2013 and 2015

Twitter has barred US Intelligence agencies from their Dataminr service, which analyzes the entirety of its social media posts and notifies clients of significant and breaking events in real time.

Dataminr trawls through public Twitter feeds and claims to have picked up on the terror attacks in Brussels 10 minutes before any news outlet.

Twitter, which owns about five percent of the company, was worried it would appear too close to US intelligence, according to an official who confirmed the move with the Wall Street Journal.

Twitter has barred US Intelligence agencies from their Dataminr service, which analyzes the entirety of its social media posts and notifies clients of significant and breaking events in real time

Dataminr trawls through public Twitter feeds and claims to have picked up on the terror attacks in Brussels 10 minutes before any news outlet

According to the company's website, Dataminr is a 'leading real-time information discovery company' that utilizes key words, geotags, and patterns of proliferation to helps clients identify the most relevant information.

In 2013, the service was used to scan for potential threats to Obama's second-term inauguration.

A US intelligence official called Dataminr 'an extremely valuable tool', which has also tracked political unrest in Brazil, the Paris terror attacks, and ISIS' gain on Libyan oil-rich land.

The WSJ reported Twitter's policy prohibits the sale of its data to government agencies for surveillance, so it is unclear how Dataminr provided its service to the US in the first place.

According to a WSJ source, In-Q-Tel, the US intelligence community's venture-capital sector invested in Dataminr.

Sources told the newspaper Twitter was behind Dataminr's decision to cut the government off after the trial with In-Q-Tel ended.

Although the social media site only owns a five percent stake in Dataminr, it is inextricably tied to the analytics service's ability to function.

In 2013, the service was used to scan for potential threats to Obama's second-term inauguration (pictured)

In Twitter's transparency report, the US government has ramped up its information requests from the company over the years, tripling from 2013 to 2015

Law professor and data privacy expert Peter Swire told the WSJ: 'Post-Snowden, American-based information technology companies don't want to be seen as an arm of the U.S. intelligence community.'

Twitter may be wary of the US' reach, especially after the privacy stand-off with Apple following the San Bernardino shootings.

In Twitter's transparency report, the US government has ramped up its information requests from the company over the years, tripling from 2013 to 2015.

In 2015, it received a total of 5,109 requests, compared to 2,879 in 2014, and 1,717 in 2013.

Former deputy director of the National Security Agency called Twitter's decision 'hypocritical' while the COO of a consulting firm said it could have 'grave consequences' in the face of counter-terrorism.

In a statement to the WSJ, Twitter said: 'Data is largely public and the US government may review public accounts on its own, like any user could.'