A voluntary enquiry with a gag order? I mean, I suppose in principle there's no reason such a thing wouldn't be possible, but it feels like a bit of an edge case.
I'm trying to think to myself if I was running a project and had a canary, what would be the threshold to kill the canary on a voluntary enquiry.
If it was CIA and they sent me: "Please give us all information on XYZ so that we can organize an assassination on them. This is voluntary and you don't have to give us that information. This is just pretty please."
I think I would kill my canary even if the request is technically voluntary and I wasn't compelled to give out any information. But that was a joke scenario because I couldn't come up with more realistic scenarios.
And then I guess if your threshold is too low, you'll kill your canary on something that might be a nothingburger.
I don't think the CIA exactly sends you a note asking for data to be dropped off at their Google Drive. It is more likely you receive an offer to license data you have from a company that is relatively obscure with a financial incentive.
If it was CIA and they sent me: "Please give us all information on XYZ so that we can organize an assassination on them. This is voluntary and you don't have to give us that information. This is just pretty please."
I think I would kill my canary even if the request is technically voluntary and I wasn't compelled to give out any information. But that was a joke scenario because I couldn't come up with more realistic scenarios.
And then I guess if your threshold is too low, you'll kill your canary on something that might be a nothingburger.