 "Apple reveals it received 4,000-5,000 requests for customer data")
Days after entities like Facebook and Microsoft made revelations about the number of requests for customer data they received from the US government in the past, Apple has made a similar revelation.
In a post titled “Apple’s Commitment to Customer Privacy”, the Cupertino brand reveals that from December 1, 2012 to May 31, 2013, it received between 4,000-5,000 requests from US law enforcement for customer data. In those requests, between 9,000-10,000 accounts or devices were specifically mentioned, and these it said, came from federal, state and local authorities and included both criminal investigations and national security matters.
Apple, like some other Internet entities approached the US government recently, seeking permission to share with its users the number of requests it receives pertaining to national security, and how they go about handling it. Apple has now been permitted to share some of that data.
Apple breaks silence on user requests
In its detailed post, Apple added that most commonly it received requests from police – investigating robberies, on the lookout for missing children, trying to find a patient with Alzheimer’s, et al.
Apple assuredly says that no matter what the situation is, its Legal team evaluates every request they receive and forwards “the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities”, only if it deems the request appropriate. “In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it,” Apple says.
Shedding more light on what data is protected, Apple claims that conversations happening over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption. This way, no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple says it cannot decrypt that data. That, and Apple claims that it does not store data related to customers’ location, Map searches or Siri requests in any identifiable form.
Click here to know what Facebook and Microsoft said last week.