Amazon and Snapchat are the worst for protecting you from government requests
Amazon and Snapchat are the worst for protecting the public from government requests, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has found, while Apple and Google ranked highly.
The Who Has Your Back? report pointed out that Snapchat does not ask for a warrant for government access to communications.
“That means,” Nate Cardozo, a lawyer for EFF, said “the government can obtain extraordinarily sensitive information about your activities and communications without convincing a judge that there is probable cause to collect it.”
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.
Despite requiring a warrant, Amazon came second last in the study, because it does not tell users about data requests.
This year’s report saw nine companies awarded the highest rating – six stars – up from two last year.
Twitter gained six stars for the second year in a row while Apple, Dropbox, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo also received the maximum number.
The EFF praised Apple and Yahoo for making “enormous improvements in the last year”.