Reddit Preservation and Emergency Requests: Police Guide and Template

How police preserve Reddit account data and make emergency disclosure requests via Reddit's Legal Request Portal, with templates. For law enforcement only.

Investigators often reach Reddit before they hold a warrant or subpoena, and two routes exist for that moment: a preservation request, which asks Reddit to hold account records while legal process is prepared, and an emergency disclosure request, which asks for limited account information without process when a life is at risk. This guide covers only those two routes, using what Reddit itself publishes in its Guidelines for Law Enforcement (last revised 22 May 2026) and its Legal Request Portal guide. For what Reddit holds, which process unlocks which records and how user notice works, see our general Reddit guide for police and the Reddit entry in the directory.

Quick answer

Who can use it: authorised government and law enforcement officials only. Reddit says its guidelines are for law enforcement and government agencies only. Victims, private investigators and journalists cannot use these routes (see cybercrime help by country).
Where to submit: the Reddit Legal Request Portal. Reddit’s portal guide says preservation requests go in through the “Information Request” form and emergencies through the “Emergency Disclosure Requests” form.
Preservation: signed, on agency letterhead, in PDF or another uneditable format; name the Reddit username(s), the records and the post or comment URLs, plus a timeframe. Kept 90 days by default, extendable by a further 90 days.
Emergency: Reddit may disclose limited account information if it has a good faith belief that disclosure is necessary to prevent imminent death or serious bodily harm. Reddit commits to no timeline.

Who can use these routes

The portal is described as the channel for “authorized government or law enforcement officials.” Reddit’s portal guide says it accepts requests only from official government or law enforcement email aliases and domains, and that email verification is required before anything can be submitted. Reddit’s guidelines page does not restrict preservation requests to US agencies; it says requests to Reddit, Inc. must be in English or accompanied by an English translation, and it separately describes Reddit Netherlands B.V. for EEA account information and the MLAT route for cross-border process.

Preservation requests: what Reddit publishes

Reddit says it will temporarily preserve account information “pending issuance of legal process for disclosure of that information.” Every one of the following must be met:

Requirement	What Reddit states
Channel	Submitted to the Legal Request Portal
Form of request	On law enforcement letterhead, signed by the requesting officer or agent, in PDF or another uneditable format
Identifiers	The Reddit username(s), the particular user records to be preserved, and the URL(s) of any relevant post(s) or comment(s)
Timeframe	The timeframe of the records to be preserved

The form. Reddit’s portal guide says to choose “Information Request” only for an account data request or a preservation request, that you need not be signed in, and to submit each request separately. The form asks for jurisdiction, your name, title, badge or ID number, agency details, type of investigation, due date, whether it is time sensitive, whether user notice is allowed, any non-disclosure order end date, an optional CyberTip number, the number and type of identifiers, and an attachment: “an official, signed copy of the legal request.” The guide does not say which fields apply specially to preservation, so complete all that are relevant.

Duration and extension. Preserved records are kept for 90 days by default. The period may be extended for an additional 90 days through a written extension request that meets the same requirements. If no extension arrives before the period ends, Reddit says the preserved data is deleted under its standard retention practice. Reddit “strongly recommends” sending the extension at least seven days before the prior term expires, with the subject line clearly marked as an extension (its example is “Preservation Extension - u/username”).

Statute. Federal law on this point is 18 U.S.C. § 2703(f). Its text says a provider, on a governmental entity’s request, “shall take all necessary steps to preserve records and other evidence in its possession pending the issuance of a court order or other process,” retained for 90 days and extended for an additional 90-day period on a renewed request. Reddit’s page does not cite the section in its preservation paragraph; the 90 plus 90 structure matches the statute.

User notice. Reddit says users are not notified of a preservation request in the ordinary course, though they may be notified of later legal process unless Reddit is prohibited from doing so.

What the page does not say. Reddit does not state whether a preservation is a one-time snapshot or continues, does not list records it cannot preserve, and does not say how preservation interacts with its automatic deletion of IP addresses after 100 days (the registration IP address is excepted). Because of that 100-day rule, do not wait. Reddit also notes that when an account is deleted, posts and comments stay visible but lose the username, so list the URLs.

Emergency disclosure requests

Reddit’s wording: it may disclose limited account information to law enforcement without legal process if it has a good faith belief that disclosure is necessary “to prevent imminent death or serious bodily harm to a person.” Reddit evaluates each request case by case, may ask for more context, may clarify overly broad requests or validate the requester’s identity, and says it does not commit to producing records in any given circumstances or “within a particular timeline.” Falsified or fraudulent emergency requests may be reported to law enforcement.

Statute. The federal provisions are 18 U.S.C. § 2702(b)(8) (contents of communications) and § 2702(c)(4) (records). Both permit a provider to disclose to a governmental entity if the provider, in good faith, believes that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure without delay of the communications (b)(8) or information (c)(4) relating to the emergency. Neither section 2702 nor section 2703 has been amended since the 2024 edition of the US Code cited below (checked against the Office of the Law Revision Counsel’s amendment tables through Public Law 119-134). They permit disclosure; they do not compel it.

What the form asks. Reddit’s portal guide (updated 29 August 2025) shows the Emergency Disclosure Request form. You need not be signed in. It asks for your email, jurisdiction, name, title, badge or ID number, agency name, phone and address, then: the nature of the emergency; details, including how you learned of the threat and links to posts or comments; the date of the related Reddit content and its URL (both optional); whether the threat is imminent (include when it was made and when you learned of it); the intended target; the specific information you need; how it will help mitigate the threat; and the number of identifiers. It also contains a declaration under penalty of perjury that you are a sworn officer or agent making the request in an official investigation. Reddit asks you to keep the request narrow: requesting everything on an account “may delay processing.”

Templates

Adapt to your agency’s format; not legal advice. Remove anything your agency or counsel does not want included.

Preservation request (PDF on letterhead, signed)

[AGENCY LETTERHEAD]
Date: [DATE]
To: Reddit, Inc., Legal Request Portal
Subject: Preservation request, u/[USERNAME]

[AGENCY NAME] requests that Reddit preserve the records described below pending issuance of legal process, under 18 U.S.C. 2703(f) [or other legal basis: CITE].

Reddit username(s): u/[USERNAME]
Records to preserve: [E.g., basic subscriber information, IP logs, non-content records, non-public messages: LIST EACH CATEGORY]
Relevant post/comment URLs: [FULL URL 1]; [FULL URL 2]
Timeframe: [START DATE] to [END DATE]
Non-disclosure order, if any: [REFERENCE AND END DATE, OR NONE]

Investigating officer: [NAME, TITLE, BADGE/ID]
Agency phone / official email: [PHONE] / [OFFICIAL EMAIL]
Agency case number: [CASE NUMBER]

[SIGNATURE]
[NAME AND TITLE OF REQUESTING OFFICER]

Preservation extension (send at least seven days before expiry)

[AGENCY LETTERHEAD]
Date: [DATE]
Subject: Preservation Extension - u/[USERNAME]

This is a preservation extension request for the preservation made on [ORIGINAL REQUEST DATE], portal reference [REFERENCE]. Please extend preservation of the same records for an additional 90 days.
Reddit username(s): u/[USERNAME]
Records, URLs and timeframe: unchanged from the original request [or: LIST CHANGES]
Case number: [CASE NUMBER]

[SIGNATURE, NAME, TITLE, BADGE/ID, OFFICIAL EMAIL]

Emergency disclosure request (mirrors the portal form; the declaration is completed on the form itself)

Nature of the emergency: [ONE LINE: E.g., threat of suicide / threat to a named third party]
Details: [HOW YOU LEARNED OF THE THREAT; WHAT WAS SAID; LINKS TO POSTS/COMMENTS]
Reddit content date / URL: [DATE] / [URL]
Is the threat imminent: [YES/NO, WHY]. Threat made: [DATE/TIME]. Agency became aware: [DATE/TIME]
Intended target: [PERSON OR GROUP, AS KNOWN]
Information requested (narrow): [E.g., registration email and IP address for u/USERNAME, last N days]
How it will help: [HOW THE DATA WILL ALLOW YOU TO LOCATE OR REACH THE PERSON AT RISK]
Number of identifiers: [NUMBER]
Requesting officer: [NAME, TITLE, BADGE/ID, AGENCY, PHONE, OFFICIAL EMAIL]
Follow-up legal process, if required: [WILL FOLLOW / REFERENCE]

Common mistakes

Wrong channel. Reddit’s portal guide (updated 29 August 2025) says its old law enforcement and legal content email addresses would be deprecated on 1 September 2025, and that anything sent to them on or after that date receives an “undelivered” error. Those addresses are not current routes. Use the portal; Reddit’s guidelines also say it does not provide phone support.
Unsigned or editable files. Preservation needs letterhead, a signature and an uneditable format such as PDF.
Vague targets. Name the username, the records, the URLs and the timeframe.
Late extension. If no extension arrives before expiry, the preserved data is deleted under standard retention. Send it at least seven days early, correctly labelled.
Duplicates and bundles. The portal guide says to submit multiple requests separately and to avoid duplicates, which can delay processing.
Overbroad emergencies. Asking for everything on an account may delay a response; narrow to what addresses the threat. Emergency requests are for imminent death or serious bodily harm, and non-emergency requests belong on the standard route.

Sources

Checked on 24 October 2026. Guidance changes; confirm on the current pages before relying on it.

These routes are for authorised law enforcement and government only. If you are a victim or a member of the public, report to the police instead. Browse our police data-request directory for other platforms, or use the country-by-country cybercrime help hub to find where to report.