Apple Releases Their Latest Transparency Report

Apple has released its transparency report for government data request received by the company. The report covers a period of July 1 through December 31, 2015 and breaks down requests by type, then divides those further by specific subgroups and countries.

The report takes into account not only requests from North America, but also from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa. Out of the 30,687 requests the company received, Apple notes that it complied with 82 percent of them. The report also details the number of account requests it receives, too.

Responding to an account request usually involves providing information about an account holder’s iTunes or iCloud account, such as a name and an address. In certain cases, we are asked to provide customers’ iCloud content, which may include stored photos, email, iOS device backups, documents, contacts, calendars, and bookmarks. We consider these requests very carefully and provide account content when the legal request is a search warrant.

As per the report, Apple has provided some data in 63% of cases in the Asia Pacific region, 52% in Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa, and 80% in both Latin America and North America. Apple also notes that total worldwide account requests from law enforcement in the last half of 2015 stand at 1,813, and out of this figure, 1,015 requests were made from within the United States.

The company complied with 82 percent of account requests, and 80 percent of device requests. The largest number of account request compliances came from Latin America, and the smallest was for Asia.

Most requests made by law enforcement agencies have requested information about a subject’s iTunes or iCloud account, or is looking for data from those accounts. Apple notes that of the 32 requests made in China, covering 6,724 accounts, the bulk of the cases relate to phishing investigations.

There were 178 emergency request made of Apple in late 2015 across the world, in which the company believed that there was an immediate danger of death or injury at hand. Out of the 178 emergency requests, 106 come from United states of America and 43 are made by United Kingdom.

Additionally, the company received between 1,250 and 1,499 national security requests, for which they are legally prohibited from offering specific numbers. There were also three account deletion requests made by government agencies, which Apple granted.

You can read the full report here.