Only 3.9 per cent of Telstra customer records accessed by policing and spy bodies in 2014 were approved by a court order or warrant, according to the company's first annual Transparency Report.

Government agencies and policing bodies gained access to 84,949 Telstra customer records in financial year 2014. Telstra is Australia's biggest telecommunications provider by market share with around 3 million fixed-line internet customers and 16 million mobile customers.

Telstra says the majority of access requests were performed to check whether customer accounts were active. Credit:Rob Homer

The number of requests has also risen over the past 12 months with 44,305 requests in the second half of the year compared to 40,644 in the first half.

"Between 1 July 2013 and 30 June 2014, we received and acted on 84,949 requests for customer information," the company said. "Of this, 2,701 were warrants for interception or access to stored communications.