Following the global trends, Cupertino tech giant Apple has released its Transparency Report, revealing that the company has revealed user information related to 27 devices and 18 accounts to the Indian government during the January – June 2018 period.

Apple received a total of 32,342 requests for information from across the world, demanding access to 1,63,823 devices. Out of this, the company granted 80% of the requests.

Among all the countries that requested user information, Germany topped the lists with more than 42% of the total requests coming from Germany. Apple, in its report, said that the high amount of requests from Germany was "predominantly due to stolen devices investigations".

In India, the government requests came in the form of subpoenas, court orders, warrants or other valid legal requests including 34 financial identifiers and three emergency requests. Apple revealed that it provided information related to devices in 63% of cases and 85% of cases in relation to financial identifiers. The company provided data in 78% of cases for account requests and all three cases of emergency requests.

Apple claimed that the high number of financial identifiers were specified due to an iTunes Gift card fraud investigation. It said, “The high number of financial identifiers were specified in requests predominantly due to an iTunes Gift Card fraud investigation.”

The report further added, “One request may contain one or multiple identifiers. We count the number of identifiers identified in each request and report the total number of identifiers by type (Device, Financial Identifier, Account).”

Apple revealed that worldwide, it received more than 25,000 government requests for customer data in the first half of 2018, which is a 9% rise in demands compared to the July-December 2017 period.

In its report, Apple further added, "Apple is committed to your privacy and being transparent about government requests for customer data globally. This report provides information on government requests received," said the company.