Apple acquiesces to US data requests more regularly than elsewhere
Apple is more likely to agree to US data requests than to similar such bids from any other country, according to the tech giant's own transparency report data.
This showed that over the course of 2015 Apple released data on its users' devices to the authorities on 80 per cent of the occasions in which it was asked to do so, compared to an equivalent approval rate of just 55 per cent in the UK and a global average of 60 per cent.
On the other side of the coin Apple was unable to release data for 33 per cent of account requests globally in 2015, with the equivalent rates for the US and UK standing at 18 and 40 per cent.
As part of Apple’s efforts to be upfront as to what it will and will not do to protect its customers' privacy, the tech giant publishes an annual summary of law enforcement requests for data as well as requests for account details for iTunes and iCloud users.
These figures were then combed by the BBC to produce the relative approval rates internationally; highlighting discrepancies across borders which it reported may be attributed to differing standards of press protection and the absence of information to hand over in some cases.
In terms of volume the US and UK were the only two nations to make more than 300 such requests per year.