2023 Report
Compelled Disclosure
In 2023, Shopify’s Regulatory Affairs team received a total of 2,954 legal access submissions. 2,262 of these requests were properly formed legal requests, of which 1,394 were compelled disclosure requests. We objected to 750 of those 1,394 compelled disclosure requests (54 percent).
This report includes data from January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2023.
Our Guiding Principles
Shopify is committed to protecting the privacy of our merchants, customers, partners, and everyone who entrusts us with their personal information. We are publishing this Transparency Report to make commerce better for everyone by building consumer confidence through transparency, and support an informed public debate on privacy rights by joining other members of our industry in reporting on government and other legal requests for access to data.
Our Process
To protect the privacy of our merchants, customers, and partners, we endeavor to minimize the amount of personal information we disclose. Our process upon receipt of a request to produce information about a merchant, a merchant’s customer, or a partner is as follows:
We will refuse to disclose personal information without a valid and enforceable subpoena or court order.
Legal requests must be addressed to the correct Shopify entity (for example, Shopify Inc. or Shopify International Limited).
We will always notify affected individuals before we disclose information, unless prohibited by law, and minimize the amount of personal information that we disclose.
We review the following factors in determining whether we will comply with a legal request:
Jurisdiction and authority of requester
Type of legal request
Shopify entity and type of information requested
In 2023, we received legal requests for information from 49 countries.
2023 received requests by country Country Count United States 650 France 483 Netherlands 281 Germany 198 Spain 166 Brazil 151 India 61 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 40 Russian Federation 39 Canada 33 Australia 28 Argentina 24 Italy 16 Switzerland 16 Austria 11 Denmark 9 Belgium 6 Hungary 6 Ireland 6 Sweden 5 Indonesia 5 Singapore 3 New Zealand 3 Czechia 3 Lithuania 3 Norway 2 Chile 2 Finland 2 Cyprus 2 Hong Kong SAR 2 Morocco 1 Poland 1 China 1 Peru 1 Costa Rica 1 Turkey 1 In 2023, we received different types of legal requests, including Grand Jury Subpoenas, Search Warrants, Preservation Orders, and Summons.
2023 received requests types Order type Count Takedown request 709 Administrative request 502 Law enforcement request 360 Invalid request 316 Subpoena 186 Request improperly routed 141 Followup to prior legal request 110 Grand Jury Subpoena 109 General inquiry 108 Administrative notice 100 Temporary Restraining Order 81 Court order 59 Complaint 34 Injunction, preliminary or permanent 30 Summons 29 Search Warrant 19 Preservation 19 Request for merchant funds 18 Letter 17 Access limitation 7