Twitter Bans US Intelligence Agencies From Using Dataminr

It has been reported on May 8 that Twitter has banned the U.S. intelligence agencies from using Dataminr which is a service that mines public Twitter feeds for paying customers.

The social networking company has not confirmed that it cut its ties from the agencies, which claimed to have informed clients about the Brussels terror attack in March 10 only minutes ahead of the media, but the Wall Street Journal named a senior US intelligence official and other people familiar with the matter. Twitter, who owns five percent of Dataminr, is apparently worried about the "optics" of being too close to intelligence organizations. In a report by Tech Times, it was mentioned that, the government had been allegedly making use of Dataminr to keep tabs on terrorist plotting.

The popular social networking site had been allowing the use of Dataminr to provide its services to the government for the past two years. However, it had an existing ban on third-party services, including Dataminr, from selling information to the government. Twitter has not issued a stated on why or how Dataminr was able to avoid the ban to specifically work with intelligence agencies. The New York City-based company, Dataminr, was first founded by Ted Bailey, Jeff Kinsey, and Sam Hendel in 2009.

Intelligence agencies apparently got access to Dataminr's product when the company received funding from In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm that invests in companies whose products and services benefit the CIA and other intelligence agencies, however Twitter reportedly told Dataminr it wanted that connection cut after the pilot program ended recently.

In a statement given to The Verge, Twitter said that it has "never authorized Dataminr or any third party to sell data to a government or intelligence agency for surveillance purposes." The company said this was "a longstanding Twitter policy, not a new development." During the time that it worked with the US intelligence agencies, Dataminr gave an alert about the Paris terror attacks moments after they began, making it "an extremely valuable tool" according to the WSJ's source.

The decision to pull back shows the increasing disconnection between government agencies and tech companies, as illustrated by Apple's recent court battle with the FBI over the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, but ex-deputy director of the NSA John C. Inglis criticized the move. "If Twitter continues to sell this [data] to the private sector, but denies the government, that's hypocritical," he told the WSJ.

Although Twitter wanted to cut ties with the intelligence agencies, the company still has existing deals with private companies in the financial, media and other industries to give brief information as its algorithms equal the data from Twitter's millions of tweets. More importantly, Dataminr still has a $255,000 contract with the Department of Homeland Security for its breaking-news service, the WSJ has said.