The software giant claims the requests come from the FBI and assuch the disclosure of the information can be justified.Microsoft revealed in its transparency report it had discloseddata pertaining to 137,424 user accounts at the behest of worldgovernments. Microsoft maintains that actual “customer content” wasreleased in only 2.1 per cent of cases.However, names, email addresses, user names and locations, whichthe company classifies as ‘non-content’, were released in 79.8 percent of cases.Most of the requests to reveal user information over the pastyear originated in the US, UK, Turkey, Germany and France.“However, we only disclose data in 46 countries where we havethe ability to validate the lawfulness of the request,” said acompany spokesperson."In recent months, there has been broadening public interestin how often law enforcement agencies request customer data fromtechnology companies and how our industry responds to theserequests," Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said.Stressing the company’s commitment to transparency, he addedthat Microsoft was following suit with companies like Google andTwitter, which had “made important and helpful contributions tothis discussion by publishing some of their data.”Google was first off the mark and has published a transparencyreport three years running, detailing the quantity of informationhanded over to government agencies. It also claimed to havereceived request letters from the FBI as part of terrorisminvestigations.Last week a judge in the US ruled that the use of such letterswent against the American constitution because it bypasses therights of the individual involved. However, the judge allowed themeasures to remain in place pending appeal.Skype surveillanceMicrosoft has come in the firing line before for itssurveillance practices regarding popular telephony tool Skype,which the company acquired in 2011. Earlier this year a group of 44privacy and free expression groups wrote an open letter toMicrosoft, urging them to publish a transparency report on howexactly the company uses private information in governmentsurveillance.“We believe that this data is vital to help us help Skype’smost vulnerable users, who rely on your software for the privacy oftheir communications and, in some cases, their lives,” read theletter.Eva Galperin from the Electronic Frontier Foundation told Forbesshe was “a little suspicious of the language” used in thetransparency report regarding Skype and is concerned that Skype mayhave provided the government with a backdoor to eavesdrop onconversations without consulting Microsoft.“This doesn’t exclude the possibility that Microsoft usedcryptographic means to undermine a users’ security and allow lawenforcement to perform their own wiretap,” Galperin told Forbesmagazine. … Read More
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