Tag: Twitter

Last month, a Chilean criminal court dismissed all charges against Rodrigo Ferrari, who was charged in February with the criminal offense of “identity usurpation,” for allegedly authoring the twitter accounts @losluksic, @luksicandronico, and @andronicoluksic, Twitter accounts that parodied the activities of the Luksic family, among the wealthiest families in Chile.

Today, Access filed a Freedom of Information Act request before the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice to ask which governments are requesting user information through mutual legal assistance treaties. This filing comes two days after a blogger and lawyer Rodrigo Ferrari was formally charged by Chilean prosecutors, who obtained his Twitter information through such a process, which was seemingly executed improperly.

Government requests for the digital information of citizens around the world are growing exponentially. Google and Twitter revealed that a rising number of countries are using this mechanism to conduct investigations. Requests to Twitter jumped by 20% in the second quarter of 2012. Google also observed a jump of more than 70% of requests since 2009, totaling 21,389 requests for information about 33,634 users in the last six months of 2012.