Apple: 4 info requests on NL'ers

During the first half of this year Apple received four requests from governments to release  private data of Dutch citizens, according to a report from Apple on information requests from governments. It is the first time for the company to publish these figures.The report shows one case of Apple actually releasing private data of a Dutch account. The data may include emails, address books, iMessages, and even photos from iCloud. In three other cases, only metadata was provided, such as an overview of a person's financial transactions. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"26357","attributes":{"class":"media-image size-medium wp-image-6663","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"300","height":"187","alt":"Apple logo"}}]] Apple logo
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Flickr The report also shows how many times police requested data associated with the serial number of a smartphone or computer. This can be used to trace stolen hardware. Apple received 61 such requests relating to Netherlands. The requests pertained to records of 229 devices, and 40 of those were honored. Apple states in the report the desire to be more transparent about what information is transferred to governments. For instance, the company wanted to specify the cases where e-mails were handed over, but that is prohibited by the U.S. government.