Apple leads among the companies that most often hand over user data to government agencies

Over the past decade, the number of requests from law enforcement for user data supported by Apple has surged by 500%.

A new report from Surfshark, referenced by Phonearena, includes requests made over the last 10 years — totaling 9 million cases across 190 countries, directed at companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Meta.

Below are the percentages indicating how many requests each company complied with out of the total:

• Apple: 82.04% of all requests
• Google: 72.88% of all requests
• Meta: 72.81% of all requests
• Microsoft: 67.42% of all requests

The report claims that the number of requests related to user data is increasing annually, with 2022 being particularly intense, accounting for about 25% of all cases mentioned in the report.

The U.S. and EU authorities (Germany, France, Ireland, Portugal, and Belgium) request data the most — making up 58% of the total from 2013 to 2022. The majority of these requests pertain to criminal investigations.

Apple has led in supporting requests since 2016, even as it implements various user privacy measures.