Law enforcement in Canada filed a high number of legal requests to Apple mainly due to iTunes Gift Card and credit card fraud investigations, according to Apple’s 2018 Transparency Report.
Apple receives a number of legal requests from law enforcement to obtain data and information on accounts that violate policies or have been compromised. The data can then lead to court orders and search warrants for civil and criminal proceedings.
For instance, there were 29 financial identifier-based requests where law enforcement agencies worked to help customers whose credit cards were used to purchase Apple products.
There were a total of 8,599 requests filed worldwide, 1,878 of which were in the United States, according to the report.
Additionally, there were 22 account-based requests where law enforcement worked on cases where they required details on customers’ iTunes and iCloud accounts due to fraud or policy violations.
The report also reveals that there were 22 government account preservation requests from law enforcement in Canada. Law enforcement can make this request when they believe an account could have been used unlawfully, and therefore ask Apple to preserve the account data while they obtain legal processes to get the data.
In Canada, all of the requests are admissible under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). The act governs how businesses must handle personal information in relation to commercial activities.
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