Pinterest has been publishing Transparency Reports twice a year since 2013. This report provides an insight into the volume of information and removal requests received from law enforcement and government agencies.
Below is our Transparency Report for the first half of 2020. For more information on how we respond to requests for user information, please see our Law Enforcement Guidelines.
2020 Transparency Report
Government information requests
Pinterest receives legal requests from law enforcement and government agencies for Pinterest user information. We diligently review each request and produce data for those that meet the requirements in our guidelines. Our policy is to notify users of government requests for their information prior to disclosing, unless we are prohibited by law or in emergency situations.
United States
| Types | Requests | Some information produced | Accounts | Accounts notified** |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subpoena | 28 | 28 | 34 | 3 |
| Court order | 3 | 3 | 5 | 0 |
| Warrant | 14 | 14 | 15 | 2 |
| Other* | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Total | 46 | 46 | 55 | 5 |
International
| Country | Types | Requests | Some information produced | Accounts | Accounts notified** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | Other* | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Total | -- | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
*Other: Law enforcement requests such as wiretap orders, pen registers, trap and trace and emergency disclosure requests
**Accounts notified: The account owner was notified before production.
National security requests*
| Time period | No. of requests |
|---|---|
| January to June 2020 | 0-249 |
*National security request: Any national security letters and orders issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for user information
Government content removal requests
We receive requests from government agencies to remove content on Pinterest that may be illegal in their country and/or a violation of our Community Guidelines.
We review the removal requests to determine if they violate our Community Guidelines. Our teams take action on violations, ranging from removing the content globally to restricting the content if it only violates local laws in the country the request originated from.
Pinterest received a total of 919 requests from 6 government agencies outside the United States of America from January to June 2020. We removed content for 790 of those requests for violating our Community Guidelines, and restricted the content on the remaining 129 requests.
| Country | Community Guidelines violation* | Legal removals** |
|---|---|---|
| Belgium | 6 | 0 |
| Germany | 1 | 28 |
| Kazakhstan | 2 | 0 |
| Korea | 76 | 1 |
| Russia | 687 | 96 |
| Turkey | 18 | 4 |
| Total | 790 | 129 |
*Community Guidelines violation: Content violates Pinterest Community Guidelines and was removed from the platform.
**Legal removal: Content was reported by a government agency but did not violate Pinterest Community Guidelines and was therefore only restricted from appearing in the country the request originated from, based on local law.
Child safety
Pinterest does not tolerate child sexual abuse material (CSAM). We have a strict no-tolerance policy for any content, imagery or text that exploits or endangers minors. Detecting and removing this content is extremely important to us and we work closely with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to combat this type of activity.
Pinterest also employs a team of specialists trained to identify and review CSAM. We submitted 1,638 CyberTipline reports to NCMEC for the first half of 2020.
| Time period | Cybertip reports |
|---|---|
| January to June 2020 | 1,638 |