In its recently-released transparency report, software giant Microsoft has revealed that it had received as many as 2238 requests from Australian law enforcement officials seeking user details in 2012.

According to the report, which marks the first `user data requests' disclosure by Microsoft, the request which the Australian law enforcement officials had filed last year for seeking the details of Microsoft users covered 3081 user accounts in all. These user accounts pertained to Microsoft's key online services, including Hotmail, MSN, Xbox Live, Office 365, and Skydrive.

Microsoft said in the report that despite the fact that 84.9 percent of the user-data requests submitted by the Australian law enforcement officials resulted in disclosure of subscriber and online services transactional information, the law enforcers were not able to see user content in any of the cases.

The numbers of requests which the law enforcers in Australia made for Microsoft's Skype subsidiary - reported separately by Microsoft - during 2012 were 195; covering a total of 424 user accounts for the service. Microsoft did not disclose any content related to Skype users also.

The figures released in the report show that Australia ranked seventh in the world in case of requests for Microsoft's user information last year; with the maximum of requests having been made by the US, the UK, and Turkey.