Ancestry 2016
Transparency Report
At Ancestry, we care about privacy. Today we are releasing our second transparency report, which covers law enforcement requests for member data. This report covers requests addressed to all Ancestry sites globally.
Ancestry requires valid legal process in order to produce information about our members. We comply with legitimate requests in accordance with our Guide for Law Enforcement.
Overview
- Ancestry received 9 valid law enforcement requests concerning users of Ancestry.com and Archives.com in 2016. We provided information in response to 8 of those 9 requests.
- All of the requests were related to investigations involving credit card misuse and identity theft.
- We received numerous inquiries that were refused because the requestor did not provide the appropriate legal process.
- We received no requests for information related to the health or genetic information of any Ancestry member, and we did not disclose any such information to law enforcement in 2016.
National Security Requests
As of December 31, 2016, Ancestry has never received a classified request pursuant to the national security laws of the United States or any other country. In other words, Ancestry has not received a National Security Letter or a request under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
