Apple reports most national security orders ever in 2017

The US government set a new record for Apple, by submitting more national security requests than ever before.

On Thursday, Apple released its biannual transparency report, which details how frequently it gets requests for customer data from governments and private parties. With more than a billion iOS devices active around the world, governments are increasingly looking to Apple and its technology to gain information about people, Cnet.com reports.

In the first half of 2017, from Jan 1 to June 30, Apple received 13,250-13,499 national security requests from the US government, according to the report. The demands affected between 9,000 and 9,249 people using Apple's devices.

That's more than double the number of requests Apple reported for the last half of 2016. And it's triple the amount of requests from the first half of last year. During this same time period in 2016, Apple received 2,750 to 2,999 national security orders.