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As noted by 404 Media, Apple has quietly updated its Transparency Report page with data from January through June 2024, revealing some interesting trends in the cat-and-mouse game between the company and worldwide governments regarding our data.
It is worth noting that Apple’s Transparency Report release schedule has been pretty inconsistent.
Still, the new report, which comes just three months after Apple released its data relative to July–December, 2023, highlights how much real-world user data Apple is handing over, and how government tactics are evolving to get it.
One of the most controversial disclosures in recent years has involved so-called “push-token” data, which is metadata that can identify which device received a specific notification from which app, and sometimes even unencrypted message content.
As 404 Media noted, this issue blew up in late 2023, after Senator Ron Wyden revealed that both Apple and Google had quietly been turning over this type of data. Apple explains why this was kept under wraps:
“Apple was only permitted to disclose information about Push Token requests starting in Transparency Report Period July 1 – December 31, 2022. Prior to this, Push Token requests were included in Account and/or Device request tables”
Apple’s latest numbers show a surge in U.S. push-token requests:
While Apple had complied with 88% of U.S. push-token requests in H1 2023, that number dropped to 66% in H2 2023, dropping further to 28% in H1 2024. In other words, in the span of eighteen months, Apple went from approving nearly 9 out of 10 requests to barely 1 in 4.
Bigger-picture and U.S. included, worldwide push-token requests nearly doubled year over year, rising from 158 in H1 2023 to 277 in H1 2024, but Apple’s approval rate dropped from 77% to just 59%.
Apple didn’t elaborate on why, but it’s clear the company has become far more reluctant to hand over this type of data, perhaps in response to public pressure.
In just six months, Apple received 12,043 device-data requests from U.S. authorities, with 42,747 total devices specified in the requests. Apple complied with 85% of the requests.
Yet, this paled compared with China, which sent in 1,212 device requests but specified a whopping 365,980 devices in these requests. Apple complied with 95% of them. Not great.
In H1 2023, Apple reported 16 geofence warrants from the U.S. During H1 2024? Just one. Apple didn’t provide data in that case, either, continuing a track record of zero compliance on geofence requests since it started breaking them out.
If you’re an optimist, this may suggest investigators are backing away from this highly controversial technique. If you’re like me, this may suggest that investigators can just get this data (or even better data) elsewhere.
You can read the full 2024 H1 Transparency Report here.
Source: 9to5mac
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