Apple has thrown its weight behind Silicon Valley’s legal challenge to restrictions that the US government places on reporting its requests for customer information, publishing new data about thousands of such demands from authorities around the world.

苹果(Apple)昨日公布了数千项来自全球各地政府对其客户信息的索要请求。此举意味着它加入了硅谷(Silicon Valley)同行们发起的一项法律行动，共同挑战美国政府对科技企业公布这类索要请求所施加的限制。

The disclosures by the world’s most valuable technology company follow fresh revelations about the extent of the US National Security Agency’s internet surveillance, which Google last week called “outrageous”.

在这家全球市值最高的科技公司披露这些信息之前，媒体上出现了有关美国国家安全局(NSA)互联网监控的最新爆料。谷歌(Google)上周称这些爆料“骇人听闻”。

At the same time as filing an amicus brief to a First Amendment case filed by Google, Facebook, Yahoo and others earlier this year, Apple sought to distance its business model from internet firms which use customer data to sell advertising.

今年早些时候，谷歌、Facebook、雅虎(Yahoo)以及其他科技企业曾根据美国宪法《第一修正案》提起一桩诉讼。苹果周二向此案提供了一份“法庭之友陈述”（即与诉讼结果有利害关系的非当事人意见陈述——译者注）。在陈述中，苹果试图将其业务模式与其它利用客户数据销售广告的互联网企业区别开来。

“Perhaps most important, our business does not depend on collecting personal data,” Apple said in Tuesday’s report. “We have no interest in amassing personal information about our customers.”

“或许最为重要的是，我们的业务不依赖于收集个人数据，”苹果在陈述中称。“我们对于大规模收集有关客户的个人信息毫无兴趣。”

Apple is the first large US hardware manufacturer to reveal requests about customers’ individual devices but it has been slower than Google and others to provide details of how many internet user accounts it has handed over to authorities.

在美国的大型硬件制造商中，苹果是首家公布对其客户个人设备信息的索取请求的。但在透露它已将多少互联网用户的账户细节交给政府这方面，它慢于谷歌及其他公司。

In Apple’s first full account of its interactions with law enforcement, it said it received 12,442 requests from 41 countries in the first half of 2013 for information about its devices, such as when, where or by whom an iPhone or iPad was first activated.

在苹果首份详述其与执法部门往来的完整报告中，苹果表示，今年上半年，该公司接到了来自41个国家的1.2442万项索取苹果设备信息的请求，包括某台iPhone或iPad在何时、何处或者由谁首次激活。

It complied with almost three quarters of those demands, including 3,110 in the US, 429 in China, 1,856 in Germany and 689 in the UK, the “vast majority” of which related to lost or stolen devices and “never” included national security-related requests, Apple said.

苹果表示，该公司满足了其中近四分之三的请求，包括来自美国的3110项请求，来自中国的429项，来自德国的1856项，来自英国的689项，其中“绝大多数”与丢失或被盗设备有关，“决不”涉及与国家安全相关的信息。

A further 1,719-2,719 requests were made globally for customer account information, such as credit cards, email addresses, photos and telephone numbers for services such as iTunes. 1,000-2,000 came from the US and 127 from the UK.

另有1719至2719项来自全球各地的请求，与客户账户信息有关，例如iTunes等服务所需的信用卡、电邮地址、图片和电话号码信息。其中1000至2000项请求来自美国，127项来自英国。

In a June letter to Apple’s head of privacy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said the company could only provide this aggregated data in broad ranges of 1,000. Apple said it had joined a legal challenge by several leading US technology companies demanding permission to disclose more information.

在今年6月写给苹果隐私部门主管的一封信中，美国联邦调查局(Federal Bureau of Investigation)告知苹果，在公布数据时，它必须以整数形式（1000项请求为一个单位）公布合并数据。苹果表示，已与美国一些领先科技公司一道发起一项法律挑战，要求获准披露更多信息。