Apple’s latest report into governmental data requests is as transparent as its recent clear iPhone XR case. The document reveals information about the government demands for user data that it receives around the world.
As you might expect, the report shows that more and more requests are being made for data around the world. The requests made to Apple in the second half of the year rose by 9 percent versus the last reporting period. In all, Apple received 32,342 requests for data on 163,823 devices.
Somewhat surprisingly (given Europe’s privacy-oriented policies), Germany was the country that made the greatest number of requests. It issued 13,704 requests regarding 26,160 devices. The United States, in second place, made just 4,570 requests for 14,911 devices. (Making that figure more stark is Germany’s population of 82.79 million versus the United States’ 325.7 million.)
There were 4,177 requests for account data (for instance, iCloud information). This was a 25 percent increase on the last reporting period. The reason is supposedly down to China making a mass data request for one giant fraud investigation.
Apple reportedly received between 0 and 499 national security orders, covering between 1,000 and 1,499 accounts.
The report takes a more readable approach than previous Apple reports on this topic. It is available in a browser version. There are also links to a PDF version and CSV files for people who really want to get into the nitty-gritty detail. There are plenty of other stats if you’re interested in checking it out.
Source: TechCrunch
