Privacy matters: Twilio’s New Transparency Report and Binding Corporate Rules

Privacy matters: Twilio’s New Transparency Report and Binding Corporate Rules

As a global cloud communications platform, Twilio knows first hand that developers are increasingly focused on incorporating strong privacy principles into their applications. 

Across regions, countries and states, lawmakers are paying increasing attention not just to how companies process data, but also to how companies educate their users on how they process data. Twilio is heartened by this increased attention to the importance of privacy principles, but at the same time, the rapidly shifting landscape can bring confusion and inconsistency. Simultaneously, the global privacy ecosystem is subject to increased surveillance, overbroad requests from government entities, and efforts to undermine strong encryption principles.

Twilio believes in a “no shenanigans” approach to data privacy. In that spirit, we’d like to draw your attention to two documents: Twilio’s Transparency Report for the first half of 2018 and Twilio’s Binding Corporate Rules.

Announcing Twilio Transparency Report – First Half 2018

• Today, Twilio is announcing our seventh semi-annual transparency report on the total volume of government requests for information received by Twilio, how Twilio responded to the requests and how often Twilio notified users of the requests.
• In the first half of 2018, the majority of the 1474 requests for information that Twilio received came from European countries. In fact, Twilio received more requests from French government agencies (669) than from U.S. government agencies (427).
• Worldwide, Twilio received requests from government agencies in 22 countries.

Twilio’s Binding Corporate Rules Approved

• In June, Twilio announced that we received approval from the EU Data Protection Authorities of our Binding Corporate Rules (BCRs), which govern our privacy program. Twilio was just one of 130 companies to have received this approval when it was received.
• Binding Corporate Rules provide multinational companies a set of internal rules for transferring data that are in compliance with EU data protection laws. To ensure that all data transfers are safe and secure, all BCRs contain privacy principles such as transparency, data quality and security as well as tools for effectiveness like auditing, training and systems for handling compliance.
• Twilio’s process for responding to government requests for information and our commitment to publishing a Transparency Report are expressly included in our BCRs.

Twilio’s CEO and co-founder Jeff Lawson said it best: “Data privacy is one of the most important issues of our time and Twilio is taking this opportunity to raise the bar and provide the highest level of data protection for our customers worldwide.”

No matter where you’re located in the world, your privacy matters.

Please email transparency@twilio.com with specific questions or feedback on the transparency report.