The first Microsoft Transparency Report, published yesterday, found gardaí made 72 requests to the technology giant relating to 222 different accounts.

In five cases, the contents of emails were provided to gardaí, while non-content user information was revealed in 46 cases.

Separately, gardaí made four requests relating to seven different Skype accounts — no data was disclosed in relation to any of these requests. In two other cases, Skype provided general guidance to gardaí regarding the procedures for accessing customer data.

Microsoft owns Skype and also operates Hotmail, its successor Outlook.com, and Messenger, among other services.

The report shows Ireland was one of five countries where user content was disclosed — the others were the US, Brazil, Canada, and New Zealand.

Google received 34 data requests from gardaí in the first six months of last year. Data was provided in just two cases.

Digital Rights Ireland chairman TJ McIntyre said Justice Minister Alan Shatter needed to clarify a number of questions over Garda requests for digital communications data.

He said the public needed to know:

*The legal basis on which the emails are being read;

*What safeguards are in place to provide oversight of the process, such as ministerial warrant;

*What mechanisms are in place to ensure no abuses take place;

*If legislation covering the interception of telecommunications messages covered digital data and if the law needed to be updated.

Mr McIntyre said it would be “worrying” if existing laws allowed Garda access to email contents “without any outside scrutiny [neither a ministerial warrant nor a court order being required] and without any judicial oversight”.

“It has never been the case in Ireland that people are notified after the fact about surveillance even if it should never have been carried out,” said Mr McIntyre.

He said existing laws on intercepting communications were drafted prior to the advent of email and therefore might not cover digital communication.

He said if somebody found their email account had been accessed by gardaí without good reason, they could bring a case to the European courts under an existing “legal loophole”.

While oversight exists at High Court and circuit court level for phone taps, Mr McIntyre said he did not believe the same level of oversight existed for digital communications.

“The Government has never come out one way or the other,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said it could not address the questions raised by the report.