It does seem to be fairly voluntary. https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/pdf/requests-2020-H2-en.pdf https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/pdf/requests

It does seem to be fairly voluntary. https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/pdf/requests-2020-H2-en.pdf https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/pdf/requests-2020-H... > An emergency request must relate to circumstances involving imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person. If Apple believes in good faith that it is a valid emergency, we may voluntarily provide information to law enforcement on an emergency basis. I imagine this is a middle ground between 'governments always have instant access to customer info' and 'i don't care, get your warrant', because in the latter scenario real harm can be done in the hour/hours it can take to process even a FISA warrant. With this, Apple can deny requests if there is not obvious imminent harm, while probably pretty good at identifying legitimate requests and delivering helpful information within a few hours to keep lawmakers from creating more types of warrants to force Apple's hand. (apple ~= all the other data providers with an emergency request system)