London's police asked Big Tech for comms data over 700,000 times last year
London’s Metropolitan Police – the UK’s largest police force – asked tech companies to give officers access to private communications data over 700,000 times in 2025 alone, according to figures obtained by The Register under the Freedom of Information Act.
These statistics expose the monitoring of everyday platforms like takeaway delivery services, and also show a massive surge in the force's surveillance of the users of low cost MVNO LycaMobile. Additionally, our FoI exposed the acquisition of data from encrypted messaging services designed to offer privacy.
Since 2024, the Met says that it has obtained communications data (CD) from Proton’s privacy-focused mail service users 139 times. CD is not messaging content, but metadata. In Proton’s case, this could include account payment details and, in some instances, IP addresses.
Although Proton did not dispute these figures, a spokesperson told us: "Proton does not transmit data directly to any foreign law enforcement...
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