Comcast Subpoena Compliance: Service Address, Required Info, and Fees

To subpoena Comcast records, first decide which track you are on. In a civil case, an attorney-signed subpoena will not work: Comcast requires a judge-signed court order that gives the subscriber notice and a chance to challenge disclosure before anything is released.¹ Law enforcement can use the full range of instruments (administrative subpoena, grand jury subpoena, court order, or search warrant), with the choice driven by the type of record sought. Either way, the request has to identify the account precisely and be served on the right entity, or Comcast will reject it.

Civil Cases Need a Court Order, Not a Subpoena

This is the point that trips up most civil practitioners. Comcast will not honor a subpoena in a civil matter, regardless of who signed it. The company requires a judge-signed court order, and that order must provide notice to the subscriber and an opportunity to contest disclosure before records go out.¹ Anything Comcast produces in a civil matter is treated as confidential and limited to the litigation.

Plan for the notice-and-opportunity requirement when drafting your motion. A boilerplate order signed at the ex parte window will not clear Comcast’s review if it lacks the subscriber-notice language.

Where to Serve Comcast

Civil legal process is served on Comcast’s registered agent, CSC Global, in the state where the subscriber account is located. CSC Global can be reached at 888-690-2882 or through its website.¹ Serving Comcast’s Law Enforcement and Subscriber Record Center (LESRC) with civil process is not proper service and will not be accepted. Verify the current agent address for the specific state before serving, since those addresses change.

Government and law enforcement requests go directly to the LESRC, which processes all valid state and federal agency requests.² The LESRC phone line is 866-947-8572.

What Your Request Must Include

Comcast rejects requests that do not contain enough detail to locate a specific account. Include a cover letter with contact information for the requesting party. Cover letters are not required for submissions through Comcast’s online law enforcement portal or for emergency disclosures.¹

The request itself needs enough identifying data to match a demand to an account:

A complete account number. Comcast will not process partial numbers.
The subscriber name exactly as it appears on the account. If the request says “James Doe” but the account shows “J. Doe” or “Jim Doe,” Comcast will require additional legal process before confirming responsive records exist. Include known variations and nicknames.
For IP address lookups, the specific date, time, and time zone of the activity. Residential IPs are dynamic and rotate, so a bare IP is useless without a precise timestamp.
For Xfinity Wi-Fi hotspot IPs, add the source port number. Comcast uses Carrier Grade Network Address Translation on its hotspot addresses, and identification is not possible without the port.
The exact date range for the records sought.¹

The Wi-Fi port requirement catches people off guard. If your activity traces to an Xfinity hotspot rather than a home connection, pull the port number from server logs before drafting.

Which Legal Instrument Gets Which Records

Federal law creates a tiered system: more sensitive records require higher levels of judicial authorization. On the law enforcement side, the instrument you use controls what Comcast produces. On the civil side, remember that the tiers below describe what government requests can obtain; civil litigants need a judge-signed order even for the lowest tier.

Basic Subscriber and Transactional Records

A government subpoena reaches basic subscriber information as defined by federal law: customer name and address (including email addresses), call detail records, internet session times and duration, bandwidth usage, length and type of service, phone numbers and account identifiers (including IP addresses), and payment records with method of payment.¹

Phone and VoIP Records

Comcast provides account information for numbers it currently or historically serves, including landline, VoIP, and mobile. Call detail records (toll records and call logs) fall inside the basic subscriber tier and are reachable by government subpoena. Records beyond that basic category require a court order signed by a judge confirming the records are relevant and material to an ongoing investigation.¹

Stored Content

Content is the most protected category. Comcast will not release stored email, photographs, or home security video in response to a subpoena or a court order. A search warrant supported by probable cause is required. The same warrant standard applies to cell site location information.¹

Cable Viewing Records

Video viewing history has its own federal shield under the Cable Communications Policy Act. A cable operator generally cannot disclose personally identifiable subscriber information without consent. When a government entity seeks viewing records by court order, the statute requires clear and convincing evidence that the subscriber is reasonably suspected of criminal activity and that the records would be material evidence, and it requires that the subscriber be notified and given the chance to appear and contest. Even when other statutes might otherwise permit disclosure, the cable privacy law specifically prohibits disclosure of a subscriber’s video programming selections.³ In practice, viewing history is one of the hardest categories to obtain.

Emergency Disclosures

Federal law permits a provider to voluntarily disclose customer records to a government entity when the provider has a good-faith belief that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury requires immediate action.⁴ Comcast handles these through a dedicated line at 877-249-7306. No cover letter or formal paperwork is needed at the outset. The agency calls, explains the facts of the emergency, and Comcast expedites production. Formal legal process must follow within a reasonable time after the emergency subsides.² An emergency disclosure changes the sequence; it does not eliminate the need for a subpoena or warrant.

Retention and Preservation

Timing shapes what is even possible. Comcast retains IP address assignment logs for 180 days. Once that window closes, the data is gone and no legal process brings it back. Retention periods for other record types vary; Comcast points requesters to its online portal or the LESRC line (866-947-8572) for category-specific windows.²

If your formal process is still in the works, submit a preservation request. Comcast holds the records for 90 days, with one 90-day extension available if requested before the initial period expires. Comcast will not honor rolling or successive daily preservation requests used as an indefinite hold.² That gives you a maximum of 180 days from the preservation request to get your legal process served and records produced.

Fees

Comcast can seek reimbursement for the cost of processing legal requests. It discusses fees with the requesting party before incurring charges, except in emergencies. Production of basic stored records generally does not generate a fee unless the request is unusually lengthy or complex.² Real-time surveillance is where costs climb:

Pen registers, trap-and-trace devices, and wiretaps run $1,100 for initial setup (covering the first month or partial month), plus $850 for each additional month or partial month the order remains active.
Special technical support is $500 at implementation for the authorized period of each new or renewed order. Standalone email collections (header information or full content) are billed at the same rate.²

Payment or a guarantee of payment is generally required before records are released. Comcast may waive that for government entities or for matters involving child exploitation.

Subscriber Notification and Non-Disclosure

Unless the legal process says otherwise, Comcast may notify the subscriber that records have been requested. In civil matters, notification is built into the process itself: the judge-signed order must give the subscriber notice and a chance to challenge disclosure before Comcast releases anything.¹

For government requests, Comcast may also inform the subscriber, either in advance or in response to a verified written request from the subscriber asking about government demands for their data. To block that, the requesting agency must include a non-disclosure statement directing Comcast not to reveal the request to the customer.² Without that language, assume the subscriber will find out. Add the non-disclosure provision before submission, not after.

1
Comcast. Comcast Guidance for Law Enforcement
2
Comcast. Comcast Guidance for Law Enforcement
3
GovInfo. 47 USC 551 – Protection of Subscriber Privacy
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2702 – Voluntary Disclosure of Customer Communications or Records