Microsoft Corp has said it has received over 400 requests from India last year for inquiries regarding criminal activity, affecting nearly 600 different accounts and claimed that it has declined to do so. However, Microsoft said it did provide non-content data 88.5 percent of the time, 10.5 percent of the time Microsoft could not find any data for the account specified, and 1 percent of the time Microsoft rejected the request for not meeting legal requirements.
The American tech giant received as many as 418 requests from Indian law enforcement agencies in 2012 which were inquiries regarding criminal activity and in all affected 594 different accounts or IDs. On information related to Skype, the Indian government made 53 requests to Microsoft, which in all were related to 101 accounts. However, requests made by the government in both the email and Skype categories are far less than that of other countries.
Curiously in the email requests, the list is topped by Turkey with 11,434 requests affecting 14,077 accounts; while the US made 11,073 requests affecting 24,565 accounts. These countries were followed by Britain (9,225 requests affecting 14,301 accounts), France (8,603 requests affecting 17,973 accounts) and Germany (8,419 requests affecting 13,226 accounts). The information comes amid global concern over snooping claims against the US by Edward Snowden, a former CIA contractor. Snowden has leaked to the media details of the secret American programme on tapping into the phone details of American nationals and intrusion into private emails of foreign nationals.
