OTTAWA—Rogers Communications gave Canadians their first real peek behind the curtain of warrantless government snooping Thursday, revealing they were asked almost 175,000 times for their customers’ data in 2013.

Rogers became the first major Canadian telecommunications provider to issue a transparency report, revealing aggregate numbers on how many law enforcement requests they receive in a year.

More telecom and Internet service providers are expected to follow suit, as Canadian customers learn more about the scope of government access to their personal data.

“I’m getting letters of customers, I’m hearing from people, acquaintances, that all the activity in the media about this issue is causing concern to people,” said Ken Engelhart, Rogers’ senior vice-president of regulatory affairs. “So we thought we better shine some sunlight on it and clear the air.”

According to report, Rogers received 174,917 requests for subscribers’ information. Engelhart said about half of those requests did not require a warrant — including customer names and addresses (87,856), emergency requests in “life threatening situations” (9,339), and emergency requests in cases of “child sexual exploitation” (711).

Federal agencies requesting the data include the RCMP, Canada Border Services Agency, the Canada Revenue Agency, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the national spy agency.

Internet protocol (IP) addresses, which can help authorities track Canadians’ activities online, are not provided without a warrant, according to the company.

Rogers could not say, however, how often authorities’ requests were granted.

“We don’t keep track of it. Our tracking to date has really been for internal management purposes, not for creating a transparency report,” Engelhart said. “So that’s something we’re going to look to expand in the future and hopefully provide more information in the future.”

That surprised Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa professor and an authority on digital privacy issues.

Geist said that, as a subscriber, the question is not how often telecoms have been asked for his information, but how often it was given out.

“The disclosure is far more important than the request,” Geist, who also writes a column for the Star, said Thursday. “It’s surprising, and more than a bit troubling, to think that Rogers doesn’t actually track how often they disclose this information.”

Still, Geist said, the aggregate numbers are a good first step. The sense in the privacy community is Canadians know so little about the scope and scale of authorities’ access to their information — including Canada’s spies and law enforcement agencies from municipal to federal — that an informed debate on those operations is impossible.

The Star and the Halifax Chronicle Herald revealed in April that nine telecom, Internet, and social media companies were asked to hand over customers’ personal information almost 1.2 million times in 2011.

Those numbers come from an anonymous aggregate report provided to Canada’s privacy commissioner. Until Rogers’ disclosure on Thursday, there were no indications how often individual telecoms are contacted by law enforcement.

Internet and telephone provider TekSavvy revealed only 52 requests from government in 2012 and 2013 combined.

The Star requested comment from Bell, TELUS, and Shaw as to whether they would release their own transparency reports. Shaw declined to comment. Bell responded to the request, but did not address the question.

Bell’s vice-president of regulatory affairs, Mirko Bibic, told reporters in May that the company needs guidance from the federal Conservatives about how much information they can release publicly.

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Geist said Rogers’ disclosure calls that explanation into question, and will likely turn up pressure on other major communication companies to follow suit.

“I think that the heat has been rising, certainly on the government but also on the telecom companies,” said Geist.

“The fact that Rogers has broken with the pack frankly signals to me that we should expect similar reports from their peers or competitors fairly soon. And if we don’t I think there’s going to be real questions as to why not.”