Hoping to show that their involvement in the government's surveillance efforts was limited, tech companies Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google started unveiling details regarding how many secret government requests for data they receive, Reuters reported.
Technology companies have asked for greater transparency involving data requests from the government in a bid to address worries regarding their participation in the government's widespread, clandestine surveillance efforts divulged by Edward Snowden, the former government spy contractor, the report said.
Last month, the government said it would loosen rules that limit the kind of details that firms can divulge regarding Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA court orders they get about user information. Last year, Google, Microsoft and other tech companies filed a lawsuit against the government so that it would be able to unveil more of that data, the report said.
According to Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith, the newest data revealed that the information the government had asked web firms to give them have not been as immense as some had originally thought.
Smith was quoted in the Reuters report as saying, "We have not received the type of bulk data requests that are commonly discussed publicly regarding telephone records. This is a point we've publicly been making in a generalized way since last summer, and it's good finally to have the ability to share concrete data."
Microsoft said that for the first half of last year, there were around 15,000 to 15,999 Microsoft-user accounts that were covered by FISA court orders that asked for content. For Google, there were 9,000 to 9,999 of its users' accounts that were covered by the same requests while Facebook said around 5,000 to 5,999 accounts were the subject of FISA requests. As far as Yahoo is concerned, the company revealed that around 30,000 to 30,999 of its accounts were covered by requests for content by FISA, the report said.
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