Apple has published its latest transparency report, which provides details on the number of government requests the tech company received during the first half of 2019.
Between January 1 and June 30, 2019, Apple received from governments device-based requests (related to lost or stolen devices, or fraud investigations), financial identifier-based requests (for assistance with suspected fraudulent credit card activity), and account-based requests (seeking details of customers’ iTunes or iCloud accounts).
Governments worldwide sent Apple a total of 31,778 device requests: 19,992 came from the EMEA region, 6,207 from the APAC region, 4,819 from North America, and 760 from Latin America. A total of 195,577 devices were specified in those requests. Overall, Apple provided information for 82% of these requests, the transparency report (PDF) reveals.
During the first six months of last year, Germany sent the largest number of device-based requests to Apple, at 13,558 (21,368 devices specified), the United States sent the second largest number of such requests, at 4,796 (11,457 devices specified), while Australia rounded the top three with 1,875 requests (121,011 devices specified).
Of the 4,664 government financial identifier requests received in the first half of 2019, 74% resulted in information being provided, Apple says. The largest number of requests were received from EMEA (2,983), followed by North America (933), Asia Pacific (734), and Latin America (14). Germany was once again the leader, with 1,072 requests.
Apple also revealed that it received a total of 6,480 government account requests in the timeframe and that 37,605 accounts were specified in those requests.
The U.S. sent the majority of these requests, namely 3,619 of them. Thus, North America sent the largest number of such requests (3,643), followed by EMEA (1,459), Asia Pacific (916), and Latin America (462).
Additionally, Apple received a total of 2,616 government account preservation requests — 2,476 from the U.S. — ..
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