UK council obtains Twitter user's details, say reports

South Tyneside Council asked a Californian court for an order forcing the micro-blogging site to disclose information about the user, the Guardian has reported.

The Council asked the Superior Court of California to force Twitter to release the details after four council officials complained about the contents of a blog, the BBC reported.

"This legal action was initiated by the council's previous chief executive and has continued with the full support of the council's current chief executive," said a spokesman for South Tyneside Council said, according to a BBC report.

"The council has a duty of care to protect its employees and as this blog contains damaging claims about council officers, legal action is being taken to identify those responsible," the spokesman said, according to the BBC.

Twitter handed over the name, email address and telephone number of a South Tyneside councillor, according to the Guardian report.

Twitter is based in San Francisco meaning a UK court cannot order it to divulge users' details.

Media law expert Kim Walker, who works for Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW, recently said that it would be difficult for a UK court to force Twitter to give up users' information.

"In the UK an individual would apply to court for a court order called a Norwich Pharmacal Order to require the release of the information. But because Twitter is based in the US a UK court would have no jurisdiction to enforce the order against Twitter," Walker said.

"The UK court would have to write to its US equivalent asking it to impose a request for information. It would then be up to that court whether to issue Twitter with an order to disclose the information," Walker said.

Ahmed Khan, an independent councillor for South Tyneside, denies he is the author of the messages but said Twitter had informed him that it had to hand over his details to South Tyneside Council, according to the BBC.

Khan said Twitter told him it had handed over information including IP addresses, mobile phone numbers and email addresses, as well as 68 pages of other details, the BBC said.

"I don't fully understand it but it all relates to my Twitter account and it not only breaches my human rights, but it potentially breaches the human rights of anyone who has ever sent me a message on Twitter," Khan said, according to the Guardian report.

"A number of whistleblowers have sent me private messages, exposing any wrongdoing in the council, and the authority knows this," Khan said, according to the Guardian.

"I was never even told they were taking this case to court in California. The first I heard was when Twitter contacted me. I had just 14 days to defend the case and I was expected to fly 6,000 miles and hire my own lawyer – all at my expense," Khan said according to the Guardian.

"If a council can take this kind of action against one of its own councillors simply because they don't like what I say, what hope is there for freedom of speech or privacy?" Khan said, according to the Guardian.

Khan said he believed that Twitter had given South Tyneside Council details of five accounts, two of which were his, the BBC reported.

"I'm the kind of person who will tell you face-to-face what I think. I have no need to use an anonymous blog," Khan said, according to the BBC's report.

Twitter said it would not comment on specific cases, the BBC said, but pointed to its policy on disclosure of information.

"Non-public information about Twitter users is not released unless we have received a subpoena, court order, or other valid legal process document," Twitter's guidelines for law enforcement said.

"Some information we store is automatically collected, while other information is provided at the user’s discretion. Twitter, Inc. is located in San Francisco, California and will only respond in compliance with U.S. law to valid legal process," the guidelines said.

"Twitter's policy is to notify users of requests for their information prior to disclosure unless we are prohibited from doing so by statute or court order," Twitter's guidelines said.