T-Mobile quietly reported a sharp rise in search warrants and police demands for cell tower data

Zack Whittaker reports:

T-Mobile has reported a small decline in the number of government data requests it receives, according to its latest transparency report, quietly published this week.

The third-largest cell giant in the U.S. reported 459,989 requests during 2018, down by a little over 1% on the year earlier. That includes an overall drop in subpoenas, court orders and pen registers and trap and trace devices used to record the incoming and outgoing callers; however, the number of search warrants issued went up by 27% and wiretaps increased by almost 3%.