US-based crypto exchange Coinbase has seen a two-fold increase in the number of customer information requests from government and law enforcement entities over the last three years.
In a new transparency report, Coinbase says that between October 1st, 2022 and September 30th, 2023, the exchange received 13,079 requests, up by about 6% during the same period a year before.
The number also marks a 209% increase from the 4,227 requests made between July 1st, 2020 and December 31st, 2020.
The report says 57% of the requests were from outside the US with 19 countries, including Armenia, Cameroon, Costa Rica, Colombia, Moldova, Côte d’Ivoire, New Caledonia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, sending their requests for the first time.
“The ~57% of requests from outside of the United States was a ~6% increase over our previous report.
~73% of law enforcement requests were from the US, Germany, U.K. and Spain.”
The US remains the highest source of law enforcement and agency requests though with 5,686, followed by Germany with 1,908.
“United States: Remained the top country with the highest number of requests in both 2022 and 2023, with a slight increase in 2023.”
Requests from authorities in Australia, Portugal and France also substantially increased, growing by over 262%, 211% and 52%, respectively.
Coinbase says it aims to strike a balance between safeguarding customers’ privacy and complying with its obligations under the law.
“Each request we receive is carefully reviewed by a team of trained experts using established procedures to determine its legal sufficiency. Where necessary, we will seek to narrow requests that are overly broad or vague in order to provide a more appropriately tailored response, and in some cases we object to producing any information at all (such as if the request is legally insufficient).”
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