Skip to main content

In 2017, Apple has seen an increase in national security requests from the government

According to Apple’s first biannual transparency report, the Cuptertino comapny received more than 30,000 demands to access over 230,000 devices in the first-half of this year. These requests are coming in the form of National Security Letters as well as requests under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Apple and other big companies are only reporting ranges, since the government will not only them to reveal precise numbers. “By law, this is the most precise information we are currently allowed to disclose,” Apple said in the report.

As far as the national security-related requests are concerned, this year Apple has received four times the amount in the first half of the year that it did one year ago. In the first half of 2017, from January 1 all the way to June 30, Apple received anywhere from 13,250 to 13,499 national security requests from the U.S. government. These requests had an affect on 9,000 to 9,249 people who use Apple’s devices.

Recommended Videos

“There’s not a huge track record here, but you can start to make a simple graph. The trend does seem to be upward,” Andrew Crocker, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said. The amount of government requests made to tech companies has been steadily growing since 2014. This is when the data first started to become available.

It’s not exactly made clear why Apple has seen such an increase in national security requests from the government this year.

Companies like Facebook, Yahoo or Microsoft have yet to voluntarily report their figures for this year. Google has said that they had received anywhere from 0 to 499 National Security Letters requesting data on between 1,000 and 1,499 user accounts in the first six months of 2017, more than ever before. Google is usually the go-to company when the government wants to collect data on people.

Google is also campaigning for reform under the US Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA).

“Providing a pathway for such countries to obtain electronic evidence directly from service providers in other jurisdictions will remove incentives for the unilateral, extraterritorial assertion of a country’s laws, data localization proposals, aggressive expansion of government access authorities, and dangerous investigative techniques,” wrote Richard Salgado, Google’s director of Law Enforcement and Information Security.

Stephen Jordan
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Stephen is a freelance writer and blogger, as well as an aspiring screenwriter. Working in front of a computer and digesting…
Apple’s security trumps Microsoft and Twitter’s, say feds
Apple's Craig Federighi speaking about macOS security at WWDC 2022.

Apple has long held a reputation for rock-solid security, and now the U.S. government seemingly agrees after praising the company for its security procedures. At the same time, the feds have suggested Microsoft and Twitter need to pull their socks up and make their products much more secure for their users, according to CNBC.

In a speech given at Carnegie Mellon University, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly pointed to Apple as a company that took security and accountability seriously, and suggested other companies should take note.

Read more
Apple Security Research website launches to protect your Mac
Apple Seurity Research website has resources for bug bounty hunters.

Apple just launched a new website that's dedicated to macOS and iOS security and there are already two blog posts that provide examples of what to expect, one providing a deep dive into memory allocation within the XNU kernel at the heart of all Apple devices, and another discussing the improved security bounty process.

The new website will undoubtedly become a critical resource for Apple security researchers, both providing information and serving as a hub for submitting bounties. The Apple Security Research website is also where you can apply for an official Apple Security Research Device (SRD) to help with identifying vulnerabilities by providing special access to what are normally protected areas of iOS.

Read more
Apple’s antivirus strategy for Mac has gone fully preemptive, but is that enough?
Security and Privacy settings open on a MacBook.

Apple made its Macs even better at fighting malware in recent years, but don't relax just yet.

A recent blog post by Howard Oakley at the Eclectic Light Company details the changes Apple has quietly made in the past six months that mark a distinct change in strategy for protecting Macs, including spots where there are still holes of vulnerability, specifically for some older Macs.

Read more