Apple gave iPhone data to government! iTunes Gift Card under spotlight

The Indian government has asked Apple to provide information for 27 devices and 18 accounts in the January-June 2018 period, with the company providing data in most of the cases owing to an iTunes Gift Card fraud investigation.

The number of government requests -- in various formats such as subpoenas, court orders, warrants or other valid legal requests -- also included 34 financial identifiers and three emergency requests, Apple said in its Transparency report released late Monday.

For device requests, Apple provided data to the Indian government in 63 per cent of cases and 85 per cent in the cases related to financial identifiers.

"The high number of financial identifiers were specified in requests predominantly due to an iTunes Gift Card fraud investigation," said Apple.

"One request may contain one or multiple identifiers. We count the number of identifiers identified in each request and report the total number of identifiers by type (Device, Financial Identifier, Account)," the company added.

For account requests, Apple provided data in 78 per cent of cases and for all the three emergency requests.

Keeping with global trends, Apple has launched a new transparency report website which makes it easier to see data requests from various governments.

Globally, the company received 32,342 demands from governments to access 1,63,823 devices, with 80 per cent of the requests granted.

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In total, the Cupertino-based iPhone maker approved more than 25,000 government requests to access customer data in the first half of 2018 - an almost nine per cent rise in demands in the July-December 2017 period.

"Apple is committed to your privacy and being transparent about government requests for customer data globally. This report provides information on government requests received," said the company.