Telco T-Mobile’s US arm received more data requests from law enforcement than its larger peers in 2014.
According to the company it received nearly 351,940 government requests for data, including 177,549 criminal and civil subpoenas, 17,316 warrants and more than 3,000 wiretap orders, an increase of nearly 11 percent from 2013.
The figures were revealed in the first transparency report T-Mobile has issued, becoming the last major US carrier to create one of the public domain reports into a previously murky area of law enforcement.
According to a CNET report, in spite of T-Mobile's smaller US customer base (Verizon and AT&T each have nearly twice as many customers), the carrier fielded more requests than its rivals. AT&T, for instance, saw 263,755 requests, while Verizon saw 287,559. Sprint saw 308,937 requests.
Meanwhile, AT&T received 2,420 wiretap orders, Verizon received 1,433 and Sprint received 3,772.
The move comes against a backdrop of increased consumer awareness around personal data and government oversight of customer data. As Welivesecurity.com recently reported, privacy-centric search engine DuckDuckGo claims that usage of the service has grown 600% since 2013, which the CEO ascribes to growing public awareness on privacy matters.
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