Yahoo has received between 12,000 to 13,000 requests for user data from law enforcement agencies in the U.S. between Dec. 1 and May 31 this year, the company said Monday.
The most common of these requests concerned fraud, homicides, kidnappings, and other criminal investigations, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and General Counsel Ron Bell wrote in a blog post.
Since The Guardian began leaking top-secret National Security Agency (NSA) documents just 11 days ago, several tech companies responded to the revelations about the PRISM program. The likes of Google, Facebook, and Apple objected to the tone of the press coverage, saying that any suggestion they've ever given a government agency direct access to their servers is false.
Over the weekend, tech companies started responding with additional transparency too. Facebook and Microsoft revealed ranges of how many government information requests they're getting about how many accounts.
Facebook and Microsoft each fielded thousands of requests for user data as part of law enforcement investigations from U.S. authorities in the second half of last year, they said late Friday.
Australian intelligence agencies have reportedly recieved "huge volumes" of "immensely valuable" intelligence data from the US, including from its PRISM program.
The PRISM programme came to light after a US Booz Allen staffer leaked a powerpoint presentation to the Washington Post and the Guardian which detailed how the US was spying on the communications of foreigners without use of a warrant.
