What data Apple does and doesn't share with the cops

In the space of six months Apple received 4,000 to 5,000 law enforcement requests.

Source: NSA's PRISM slide show.

FORTUNE -- Embarrassed to find itself on the list of companies from whose servers the National Security Agency claims to have been "directly" collecting data, Apple (AAPL) issued a public statement early Monday that it hoped would allay its customers' concerns. Among the key points:

• The authorities asked for a ton of information: Between Dec. 1, 2012 and May 31, 2013 the company received 4,000 to 5,000 requests about 9,000 to 10,000 accounts and devices.
• The requests came from federal, state and local authorities and included both criminal investigations and national security matters.
• Many of those requests, according to Apple, were benign. "The most common form," it said, "comes from police investigating robberies and other crimes, searching for missing children, trying to locate a patient with Alzheimer's disease, or hoping to prevent a suicide."
• Apple's lawyers reviewed each request, provided "the narrowest possible set of information," and from time to time rejected the requests outright.
• Apple does not provide the content of conversations that take place over iMessage and FaceTime because those are encrypted in a way that Apple says it can't break. Whether the NSA can is left unanswered.
• Apple does not store data related to customers' location, Map searches or Siri requests in a way that can be traced back to the user. Again, whether the NSA could do that is not clear.
• By omission, Apple's statement implies that the contents of e-mail, photographs, videos and other files stored on Apple's servers are fair game.

Note too that Apple received the government's permission to release only "some of [the] data" related to law enforcement requests for information about its customers.

Link: Apple's commitment to customer privacy.

Posted in: Apple, Law Enforcement, NSA, PRISM, privacy

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