Microsoft Releases Early 2013 Law Enforcement Data Request Numbers

Earlier this year, Microsoft published its first Law Enforcement Requests Report, in which the company details the number of requests it has received for user data, as well as how each request was responded to. That report looked at numbers from 2012, while the latest one it published today details the first six months of 2013. As last time, some requests made via FISA may not be included due to government restrictions.

According to the report, which is available for download now from Microsoft's website, the company received a total of 37,196 requests from various law enforcement agencies that "potentially" impacted a tad over 66,000 accounts. This is about on par with what its 2012 numbers demonstrated, with the full 12-month period of last year seeing 75,378 data requests that cover about 137,000 accounts.

Of the requests it received in the first six months of this year, about 77-percent saw Microsoft handing over "non-content data," with 21-percent having no information handed over. Breaking down the numbers further, a bit over 2-percent of the requests had Microsoft give content data from customers targeted, with 92-percent of those requests being from agencies within the US. Compared to last year, the numbers are again relatively stable.

Says Microsoft, such numbers represent a very small number of its overall users, with the targeted accounts amounting to about 0.01-percent. The top five countries to ask for data are the United States, Turkey, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France. For Skype requests — which are factored into the numbers above — the top countries are narrowed down to four: the US, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany,

SOURCE: Microsoft