UK protests over access to Twitter data

[DFighter]

The British government is protesting against Twitter's decision to withdraw access to user data used to investigate potential terrorist plots.

The information was previously used by the police and the MI5 intelligence agency.

However the Telegraph newspaper cited industry sources, in a report on 25 April, saying the government's access had been "blocked".

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"We are protesting this decision. We are in talks with Twitter on getting access to this data," a government spokesman said, according to the Reuters news agency.

The BBC understands that the data in question is available to private companies but the Home Office has been denied access to it.

Recent reports of Twitter data being used for surveillance had caused the company "great concern", vice president Chris Moody wrote in a blog post last November.

"Our commitment to social justice is core to our mission and well established," he wrote.

Prior to that, the firm had already blocked the FBI and CIA from purchasing data on Twitter users from the data-gathering service Dataminr.

More to follow

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39721632