Kraken: 49% rise in law enforcement data requests
- While in 2018, Kraken received 475 requests by law enforcement agencies, in 2019, the numbers rose to 710.
- With 116 data requests, the FBI has made the most requests in 2019 from the US.
Crypto exchange Kraken says that global data requests from law enforcement agencies in 2019 have increased by 49% over 2018. Kraken mentioned that it received about 710 data requests, which impacted 1222 accounts in 2019. In 2018, however, only 475 requests were made by law enforcement agencies. US law enforcement agencies made 432 requests across 2019. The United States was followed by Britain, making 86 requests. Following this was Denmark, in third place.
Notably, most of the requests from the US were made by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) - with 116 data requests. Last year in the US, many arrests were made on account of drugs being sold in exchange for cryptocurrency. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has made 73 requests.
However, not all requests from law enforcement are valid. 28% of the requests failed to meet local requirements or the firm’s information production policies, as per Kraken. Hence, it was only able to provide information to only 62% of the requests.
Author
Rajarshi Mitra
Independent Analyst
Rajarshi entered the blockchain space in 2016. He is a blockchain researcher who has worked for Blockgeeks and has done research work for several ICOs. He gets regularly invited to give talks on the blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.
