Apple publishes transparency reports twice every year to highlight the number of account takedown requests that it received during the previous six months. The company has now released its first such report for the year which was accompanied by a statement to inform us all that the company will now also start reporting government requests it receives for app removals from the App Store.
The transparency report brings the usual figures on account takedown requests and also confirms that the company will soon be reporting requests from governments across the globe to remove apps from the App Store. It adds that these requests will be related to potential legal and/or policy provision violations.
The numbers will then reveal to us how often governments try to have certain apps removed from the App Store. It’s not like Apple will say yes to every single request. It’s only when there’s a bona fide legal or policy violation that the company will comply with the request. This additional disclosure will also mention the number of requests that Apple complies with.
The latest report reveals that governments across the globe requested Apple for information on 29,718 devices and the company complied with 79 percent of the cases. All of the requests were verified from a legal point of view.
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