Twitter is banning US spy agencies from using a service that can detect terrorist attacks early
Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesJack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter.
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Twitter has reportedly banned US intelligence agencies from using Dataminr, a service it partially owns that provides real-time alerts for breaking news like natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and actionable business events.
The Wall Street Journal reported the news on Sunday, citing US intelligence officials who say Twitter was concerned about the "optics" of the relationship.
The social network told The Journal that its "data is largely public and the US government may review public accounts on its own, like any user could."
Dataminr, which Twitter owns a 5% stake in, works by trawling Twitter's "firehouse" of all public tweets, using sophisticated software to automatically monitor it for developing news and events the user might be interested in. It can catch and highlight potentially significant news events before they make their way to the media — a tweet from a company employee laid off in a restructuring, for example, or a photo of the damage immediately after a terrorist attack taken by a survivor.
It is used by workers in the financial industry looking to get the edge on actionable events, where being first can be the difference between profit and loss. It is also popular with journalists for getting alerts on breaking news and finding sources on the ground (Business Insider previously had a free trial of the service).
US spy agencies have also used the service to monitor terrorist attacks (such as those in Brussels); however, according to The Journal, Twitter has made Dataminr pull the plug. The social network is — an unnamed intelligence official alleges — concerned about looking too friendly to the agencies at a time of soured relationships between the tech industry and the US government over policy issues like encryption and surveillance.
In a statement, a Twitter representative told Business Insider "we have never authorized Dataminr or any third party to sell data to a government or intelligence agency for surveillance purposes," and "this is a longstanding Twitter policy, not a new development."
US agencies, however, were reportedly able to use Dataminr for two years before the ban was enacted.
Dataminr did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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