Microsoft released its biannual sets of government data request reports today, showing fewer government requests overall, and a greater percentage of requests that didn’t meet Microsoft’s standards for disclosing information.

microsoftlogo1-1024x680Overall, the company received 31,002 requests for information from 52,997 accounts or users from June to December 2014. That’s down from 35,083 requests for information from 58,676 users or accounts during the same period in 2014.

Of the requests Microsoft received this year, it disclosed content like email messages in 3.36 percent of cases, and non-content data like users’ names and IP addresses in 73.17 percent of cases.

That represents a slight increase in the number of content disclosures year-over-year. Microsoft also rejected more requests for not meeting legal requirements for disclosure compared to the same period a year ago – 2,342 in the second half of 2014 compared to 1,194 in the second half of 2013.

Requests from government agencies in Turkey, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and United States made up 70 percent of all the requests that Microsoft received.

In addition to the overall law enforcement request data, Microsoft also published its report on U.S. national security orders. It’s a more vague report, because Microsoft can only disclose numbers in ranges of 1,000, rather than the exact requests. The report showed that Microsoft received 0-999 National Security Letters from June to December 2014, the same as the company has reported since the second half of 2012.

The company reported receiving 0-999 requests for non-content data relating to 0-999 accounts from January to June 2014 (FISA disclosures are delayed by six months), which is in line with what the company has reported since it was able to begin releasing these reports after the second half of 2011.

Microsoft received 0-999 requests for content data under FISA, which affected between 19,000 and 19,999 accounts. That’s the largest number of accounts affected by FISA content disclosure orders since Microsoft began reporting them, and an increase over the 18,000-18,999 accounts affected by requests in the second half of 2013.

John Frank, Microsoft’s assistant general counsel and vice president for legal and corporate affairs, used a blog post about the reports to call once again for stronger reforms of government surveillance practices and data request policies. It’s a relevant issue for Microsoft, which is fighting a U.S. court order that requires the company to release data from a data center based in Ireland.

“The bottom line is that while governments only request data on a very small fraction of our customers, governments are seeking to alter the balance between privacy and public safety in a way that impacts everyone,” Frank wrote.

He added, “As we have said before, there are times when law enforcement authorities need to access data to protect the public. However, that access should be governed by the rule of law, and not by mandating backdoors or weakening the security of our products and services used by millions of law-abiding customers. This should concern all of us.”

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