[buran77]

There are ISPs who provide that information based on agreements with the law firms (what you called the automated process - quite literally there's no meaningful human intervention at any point which goes against every principle). Those cases will be dropped as soon as they receive a counter letter from a lawyer because it's the kind of thing that's supposed to stay in the shadow.

A court order is not supposed to be automated because it's exceedingly simple to make it output whatever you want while still claiming good faith.

[lgierth]

Ah I did not know that, thanks! - My dozen or so cases have always had a court order attached. Worrying that there are ISPs that hand out data without one...