APPLE says it received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from US law enforcement for customer data for the six months ended in May.

The company, like some other businesses, had asked the US government to be able to share how many requests it received related to national security and how it handled them. Those requests were made as part of PRISM, the program that seizes records from Internet companies.

Apple said that between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in data requests between December 1, 2012, and May 31 from federal, state and local authorities.

It said the most common requests came from police investigating robberies and other crimes, searching for missing children, trying to locate a patient with Alzheimer's, or hoping to prevent a suicide.

"We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer content must get a court order," Apple said.