India made 321 user data requests in 2013: Microsoft

New Delhi: India made 321 user data requests between January to June this year to software giant Microsoft (including Skype), which disclosed subscriber/ transactional data for nearly 80 percent of those requests.

For entire 2012 calendar year, Microsoft including Skype had received 471 user data requests from India.

 Microsoft’s second law enforcement request report details the number of requests for data it received from law enforcement agencies globally and how it responded to them.

They also cover requests for data relating to all of Microsoft’s online and cloud services. The latest report reveals that India made 278 requests (excluding Skype) for user data affecting 413 accounts between January-June 2013.

The firm revealed only subscriber/transactional data for 80.6 percent of these requests, while in 16.2 percent cases no data was found. It rejected 3.2 percent of the requests made by India. For Skype — which allows users to make voice calls over the Internet — India made 43 user data requests affecting 102 accounts during the first six months of this calendar year.

Microsoft said it provided only subscriber/transactional data for 79.1 percent of these requests. The company rejected 18.6 percent of the total requests made while no data was found for 2.3 percent of the Skype-related requests.

Globally, Microsoft (including Skype) received 37,196 requests from law enforcement agencies impacting 66,539 accounts in January-June 2013 compared to 75,378 requests and 137,424 potential accounts in the whole of 2012.

“While we see requests from a large number of countries, when you look at the overall number, the requests are fairly concentrated with over 73 percent of requests coming from five countries, the US, Turkey, Germany, the UK, and France,” it said.

For Skype, the requests were similarly concentrated the US, the UK, France and Germany, accounting for over 70 percent of requests, Microsoft added.

 The report comes close on the heels of technology firms coming under pressure following revelations of a secret US Government programme which scoops up data from Internet firms.

Technology firms, including Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter and Google, have been releasing information on government data requests in the belief that it would help in reassuring their customers.