Ancestry 2018
Transparency Report

At Ancestry, privacy is our top priority. Below is our transparency report for 2018, which covers law enforcement requests for member data. This report covers requests addressed to all Ancestry brands.

As explained in our Guide for Law Enforcement and our Privacy Statement, Ancestry requires valid legal process in order to produce information about our members. We comply with legitimate requests in accordance with our Privacy Statement.

Overview

  • Ancestry received 10 valid law enforcement requests for user information in 2018. We provided information in response to 7 of those 10 requests.
  • All the 2018 requests relate to investigations involving credit card misuse, fraud, and identity theft.
  • We refused numerous inquiries on the basis that the requestor failed to obtain the appropriate legal process.
  • We received no valid requests for information related to genetic information of any Ancestry member, and we did not disclose any such information to law enforcement.

National Security Requests

As of December 31, 2018, Ancestry has never received a classified request pursuant to the national security laws of the United States or any other country. In other words, Ancestry has not received a National Security Letter or a request under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Number of Requests per Ancestry Website: Ancestry.com (10). Jurisdiction: US Federal (2), US State (8). Type of Request: Criminal Subpoena (8), Search Warrant (1), Emergency Request (0), Administrative Subpoena (0), Civil Subpoena (1)