No one can deny that the government does what it can to get its hands on private data which it thinks is necessary for one reason or another. While some conspiracy theories are still way out of this world, there is no doubt about the government wanting to know everything that’s going on in the lives of particular individuals they deem to be of interest.

That’s why there has been a continuous outcry as to how tech companies handle government data requests. The reasoning, of course, is that our data is ours, and no company should be allowed to hand it over to anyone else – the government included. Of course, we know that isn’t always the case.

Independent group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has conducted a study to determine just how technology companies handle our data and how they perform in terms of protecting it. For the study, the EFF used six major categories:

Requires a warrant for content Tells users about government data requests Publishes transparency reports Publishes law enforcement guidelines Fights for users’ privacy rights in courts Fights for users’ privacy rights in Congress

It’s good to know that, in spite of the news we’re hearing about security flaws, Apple scored excellently in this study. As the snippet of the published chart shows above, Apple got stars in all six categories.

Now, before you gloat, Apple is not the only one who did well – there’s Microsoft, Google, Dropbox, Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo! in the same level as well.

Do you feel better about your data in Apple’s hands now?