Microsoft received 25,367 legal requests from law enforcement for customer information in the first half of 2017

Late this afternoon, Microsoft released its biannual digital trust reports, finding that it has been “largely consistent” with previous reports. The full and most recent report is now available on the Microsoft Reports Hub, but highlights show that Microsoft received 25,367 legal requests for customer information from law enforcement agencies in the first half of 2017.

According to Steve Lippman, Director of Corporate Responsibility at Microsoft, the 25,367 legal requests from law enforcement agencies is a “slight decrease from the previous six-month period.” Most of these law enforcement requests also come from the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Another highlight from the report can be seen below:

• For the latest Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) data reported (which is June – December 2016), Microsoft received 0-499 FISA orders seeking content disclosures affecting 13,000 – 13,499 accounts, compared to the 0-499 FISA orders seeking disclosure of content impacting 12,000-12,499 accounts reported for the previous period. We received 0-499 National Security Letters in the latest reporting period, which remains unchanged from the previous period.

Dated January to June 2017, these reports cover the Law Enforcement Requests Report, U.S. National Security Orders Report and Content Removal Requests Report. Previously, In the latter half of 2016, Microsoft had received a total number of 25,837 legal requests for customer information from law enforcement agencies.

This is all part of Microsoft’s commitment to helping customers understand their policies for responding to government requests. You can learn more about the reports by checking this website.