Microsoft released information on Thursday about requests it received from police, according to TheHIll.com.
The data included requests authorities made for user data on online services such as Hotmail, Outlook, Xbox Live, and Skype.
According to a post by Brad Smith, General Counsel & Executive Vice President of Legal & Corporate Affairs for Microsoft, on blogs.technet.com the company received “75,378 law enforcement requests for customer information.”
The requests possibly affected 137,424 accounts.
However, Smith put in bold font that, “Only 2.1 percent, or 1,558 requests, resulted in the disclosure of customer content.”
He said that over 99 percent of the disclosures came in response to a warrant issued by a U.S. court. Also “only 14” of the disclosure went outside of the United States. For example, information was released to countries such as Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, and Brazil.
"We’ve benefited from the opportunity to learn from them and their experience and we seek to build further on the industry’s commitment to transparency by releasing our own data today," Smith said.
According to The Hill, there were other cases in which Microsoft could have disclosed information that did not include content, such as, subscriber information and email logs.
Before Microsoft, Google released information about the disclosure it made to authorities. The company released information about requests that took place beginning in July 2010. In 2012, the company received 42,427 police requests. Twitter has joined both Microsoft and Google in the push for transparency, but only at certain times.
Currently, authorities are allowed, by law, to view emails that have already been opened. However, they must be older than 180 days. Lawmakers in Congress are working to get Internet users more privacy for their emails and use of other online services.
According to The Hill, Microsoft Google, Yahoo, and Facebook believe the current law is not enough. They maintain the law, as it stands now, does not match the rights provided in the Fourth Amendment.
