A new transparency report issued on October 16, 2020, by the top cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase reveals that various law enforcement agencies sent more than 1900 requests for information to Coinbase. According to the transparency report, Coinbase has received a total of 1914 requests from agencies in the first half (H1) of the present year. These information requests consist of the criminal information requests as well as administrative or civil requests, the report revealed.
The San Francisco-based international non-profit digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked the major digital currency exchange Coinbase, in the month of September, to begin issuing transparency reports. EFF also sent a request to Coinbase earlier this year saying that it should be more transparent while handling authorities’ requests for private financial data of customers.
The transparency report focused on summarizing requests that the crypto exchange received from government agencies for the account information of customers. As the exchange said in the announcement post:
“We regularly receive requests from law enforcement and government agencies seeking customer account information and financial records in connection with civil, criminal, or other investigative matters.”
Coinbase said that it will be issuing transparency reports on a regular basis now. It said that transparency and honesty help in building the trust of clients.
Over 1,100 Information Requests Came from the US Agencies
In total, there were 1914 information requests that the crypto exchange received from these agencies. Out of the total requests, approximately ninety percent came from three countries including the United States (US), Germany, and the United Kingdom (UK).
As per the transparency report, the majority of these information requests came from the law enforcement agencies of the United States. These US agencies counted for almost sixty percent of these information requests. Coinbase received a total of 1,100 requests from the United States agencies. The law enforcement agency of the United States Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI) was on the top of the list that made 340 requests. The Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) made a total of 184 requests to the Coinbase exchange. Coinbase also said that it cannot reveal information related to some of the requests it received.
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