Apple on Friday, 25 May, publicly stated that more than 30,000 device requests were put forward by governments of many countries in 2017. This revelation comes at a time when many technology giants have been pushed to become transparent about their functioning and how data is shared with entities.
According to the report published, requests were made for device information on 29,718 Apple devices, with India making 27 requests in the July-December 2017 period. Overall, the data was provided in 79 percent of the cases, Apple said in its bi-annual transparency report made available on Friday.
In the case of India, the data was provided for 14 out of the total 27 requests (52 percent).
The governments and private parties around the world also requested information on 3,358 Apple accounts and data was provided in 82 percent of cases.
"Examples of such requests are where law enforcement agencies are working on behalf of customers who have requested assistance locating lost or stolen devices.
"Additionally, Apple regularly receives multi-device requests related to fraud investigations. Device-based requests generally seek details of customers associated with devices or device connections to Apple services," the Cupertino-based company said.
The tech giant said that starting with the period July 1-December 31 2018, it will "report on government requests to take down Apps from the App Store in instances related to alleged violations of legal and/or policy provisions".
Apple requires government and private entities to follow applicable laws and statutes when requesting customer information and data.
"We contractually require our service providers to abide by the same standard for any government information requests for Apple data. Our legal team reviews requests received to ensure that the requests have a valid legal basis,a the company said.
"When we receive an account request seeking our customers' personal information, we notify the customer that we have received a request concerning their personal data except where we are explicitly prohibited by the legal process, by a court order Apple receives, or by applicable law," it added.
Other than Apple, Facebook had recently publicised its behind-the-scenes work to remove more than 583 million fake user accounts from its platform.
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