Twitter Blocks Intelligence Agencies from Using Dataminr for Social Media Surveillance

Twitter exercised its contractual veto power to block U.S. intelligence agencies from accessing Dataminr’s social media surveillance platform, marking a rare instance of a tech company refusing to facilitate government intelligence gathering. The decision came as Dataminr was conducting an unpaid pilot program with intelligence agencies, allowing them to test the platform’s capabilities for monitoring Twitter’s complete data stream in real-time. Twitter’s intervention prevented intelligence services from converting this trial into a permanent surveillance relationship, despite In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm, being a major investor in Dataminr and the intelligence community’s strong interest in acquiring the monitoring capabilities.

The move highlighted tensions between Twitter’s public commitments to user privacy and free expression, and the commercial interests of Dataminr, a company in which Twitter held approximately 5 percent ownership while simultaneously serving as its primary data supplier. Twitter’s terms of service with Dataminr included provisions that gave the social media platform authority to restrict how its data could be used, and the company chose to exercise this power specifically to prevent intelligence agency surveillance of user activity. The decision came amid growing public scrutiny of tech companies’ cooperation with government surveillance programs following Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations about NSA mass surveillance.

However, the policy had significant limitations. While Twitter blocked direct intelligence agency access to Dataminr, the company continued allowing law enforcement agencies—including the FBI, which held contracts worth over $1 million with Dataminr—to use the surveillance platform. This distinction created what critics described as a loophole where intelligence agencies could potentially access the same data through law enforcement partnerships and information-sharing arrangements. The restriction also did nothing to prevent Dataminr from continuing to provide services to state and local police departments, which would use the platform extensively to monitor Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd’s killing in 2020. Twitter’s selective ban on intelligence agency access, while maintaining law enforcement access, revealed the incomplete nature of tech companies’ privacy protections and the persistence of surveillance infrastructure even when companies claimed to prioritize user rights.