Responding to unusual government request for user data: How tech companies make sense of human rights

Abstract

Data sharing practices between governments and the private sector are characterized by a lack of transparency which has potential implications for human rights. Minimal scholarship exists investigating how companies address human rights risks stemming from government requests for user data. Understanding corporate response processes to government requests is central to advancing human rights research at the intersection of tech company conduct. This becomes even more pressing as emerging technologies gather increasing amounts of data. Scholarship demonstrates that transparency reporting cannot assist in analyzing data sharing practices between the private and the public sectors due to a variety of constraints. Using semi-structured interviews with senior staff at technology companies, this paper presents an empirical analysis of how technology company representatives and external advisors seek to align their processes when responding to government requests for user data. It describes a set of six themes using human rights terminology which company representatives aim to employ when responding to requests.