2016 Law Enforcement Transparency Report

Airbnb is proud to announce its first transparency report, documenting global law enforcement requests for user information for the period between January 1 and June 30, 2016. This is the first transparency report produced by Airbnb. We intend to update it regularly, on at least an annual basis.

Airbnb operates in over 35,000 cities and in 191 countries. Since its founding in 2008, there have been over 100 million guest arrivals in Airbnb listings. While negative incidents are rare, Airbnb works with law enforcement to protect the rights of our Hosts, our Guests, and the community at large.

As set forth in our Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and law enforcement guidelines, Airbnb discloses user information in response to law enforcement requests if required to do so by law. Airbnb may also disclose user information if it has a good faith reason to believe that it is necessary to do so in order to protect the rights, property or safety of Airbnb, its users, or members of the public. Our goal with this report is to provide additional insight into the number of requests that we receive, where they come from, and how often we provide information in response to them.

Airbnb’s policy is to provide notice to users when we receive legal process from a third party seeking their information, including law enforcement agencies, unless we believe that doing so would be futile, ineffective, or create a risk of harm. In some circumstances, we may also be legally prohibited from providing notice to the affected user or even (in the case of certain types of national security-related requests in the United States like national security letters) from publicly acknowledging receiving it, such as in a transparency report like this one. (To date, we have not received a national security letter or other similar request that would limit our ability to disclose it here.)

The following statistics document Airbnb’s response to law enforcement requests processed between January 1, 2016, and June 30, 2016. Specifically, this report documents the total number of requests processed during this period, the total number of requests for which at least some user data was disclosed, the response rate (calculated as a percentage), and the total number of accounts for which at least some account information was disclosed in response to requests during this period. Finally, this report documents similar statistics regarding emergency requests for user information where law enforcement indicated that the physical safety of a host, guest, or a member of the public may be at risk.

If you are a law enforcement official, please review and follow the procedures set forth in Airbnb’s law enforcement guidelines in order to request information about users of the Airbnb platform.

Compliance Statistics – Global (Jan. 1 – June 30, 2016)

Compliance Statistics by Country (Jan. 1 – June 30, 2016)

COUNTRY	TOTAL REQUESTS	REQUESTS FOR WHICH AT LEAST SOME ACCOUNT DATA WAS DISCLOSED	COMPLIANCE RATE	NUMBER OF USER ACCOUNTS AFFECTED
France	42	22	52.40%	25
United States	31	21	67.70%	31
Germany	25	7	28%	7
United Kingdom	23	10	43.50%	11
Spain	20	5	25%	5
Italy	15	2	13.30%	2
Australia	6	3	50%	3
Canada	5	1	20%	1
Switzerland	4	4	100%	6
Norway	3	2	66.70%	2
Austria	2	0	0%	0
Czech Republic	2	1	50%	1
Malta	2	0	0%	0
Greece	1	0	0%	0
India	1	1	100%	74
Ireland	1	1	100%	1
Japan	1	1	100%	1
New Zealand	1	1	100%	2
Portugal	1	0	0%	0
Singapore	1	0	0%	0
Taiwan	1	0	0%	0

Compliance Statistics for Emergency Requests (Jan. 1 – June 30, 2016)

GEOGRAPHY	EMERGENCY REQUESTS	REQUESTS FOR WHICH AT LEAST SOME ACCOUNT DATA WAS DISCLOSED	COMPLIANCE RATE	NUMBER OF USER ACCOUNTS AFFECTED
United States	2	2	100%	2
Rest of World	3	3	100%	3