Apple releases new transparency report on government data requests, App Store removals

Apple has published its latest biannual transparency report that details the requests from governments around the world to access its customers’ data.

Covering January 1st, 2019 through June 30th, 2019, the report looks at how many total requests the tech giant received, as well as how many times it complied. Further, the report examines governments’ requests to remove content from the App Store.

To start, Apple says it received 31,778 data requests from governments during this six-month period. These requests covered more than 195,000 devices; Apple says it provided data in 82 percent of these cases.

For context, Germany had the highest amount of requests at 13,500. In North America, the U.S. made 4,796 requests, while Canada filed only 19.

Apple says law enforcement agencies request data related to which customers are associated with certain devices. This data is typically used in investigations related to fraud, theft or other illegal activity.

Finally, Apple says it received a total of 70 App Store takedown requests for “legal violations.” Most of these came from China and other parts of Asia. None were from North America. Meanwhile, 25 App Store takedown requests for “platform policy violations” were made, with the majority of these coming from China as well.

Due to privacy laws, Apple’s report doesn’t get too into the weeds regarding these data collection practices. In any case, you can check out Apple’s full transparency report for yourself here.

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