Apple Employees at Carindale Store in Australia Fired in Photo Scandal [Updated]

[MacRumors]

Several employees at the Carindale Apple Store in Brisbane, Australia were today fired for stealing personal photos from customers and taking pictures of customers and female staff as part of a lewd rating game, according to Australian news site The Courier Mail.

The behavior was discovered by at the Carindale Apple Store after an employee caught a technician looking through a customer's iPhone in the repair room.

In the biggest scandal to hit the technology giant in Australia, The Courier-Mail can reveal that more than 100 close-up and explicit photos were taken of female staff and customers without their knowledge and photographs were also lifted from some Apple customers' phones.

The victims' pictures were then shared with employees at other Queensland stores to receive a ranking out of 10.

Apple has reportedly brought in an HR executive from "overseas" to "manage the fallout," but has not yet let employees and customers know who was involved in the breach. Apple confirmed in a statement that the Carindale store is under investigation.

"Apple believes in treating everyone equally and with respect, and we do not tolerate behaviour that goes against our values," the statement read.

"We are investigating a violation of Apple's business conduct policy at our store in Carindale, where several employees have already been terminated as a result of our findings."

According to The Courier Mail, four male employees have been let go from the Carindale store as Apple continues to investigate the incident.

Update: On Thursday Apple released a statement, which reads: "Based on our investigation thus far, we have seen no evidence that customer data or photos were inappropriately transferred or that anyone was photographed by these former employees. We have met with our store team to let them know about the investigation and inform them about the steps Apple is taking to protect their privacy."

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple Employees at Carindale Store in Australia Fired in Photo Scandal [Updated]

 

[farewelwilliams]

ouch that's no good...

 

[dmylrea]

How were "explicit" photos taken of employees and customers without them knowing it? Do Apple stores have public restrooms?

 

[Elijen]

What a terrible thing to do ....


Link anyone?

 

[Bbqthis]

You will find vile filth pretty much everywhere you care to look. Unfortunate fact of the human race.

 

[aajeevlin]

Was never a fan of their policy of taking the phones back there for repair. How can apple be sure that employee are not looking through my emails?

 

[simonmet]

How is this discussion political in nature?

It's workplace misconduct. Plain and simple. Nothing remotely political about that.

C'mon MacRumors!

 

[pcmacgamer]

Such a terrible shame. I always would air on side of caution and restore phone before taking in for a repair. Realize that's not for everyone and not always possible. So sickening how some rotten people can tarnish image of the honest hard working repairguys. Just hoping this is an outlier...

 

[Stella]

Good riddance. No need for behaviour like that, anywhere.

 

[imajez]

Was never a fan of their policy of taking the phones back there for repair. How can apple be sure that employee are not looking through my emails?

I think that's an issue with any computer repair.
Safest way to is to keep your OS and data on two separate drives. Except you can't do that on Apple laptops anymore, nor phones/tablets. However you can flatten [if not too dead] a phone tablet and after its repair restore from icloud/your computer.

 

[diddl14]

What is political about this? Just locker-room stuff...

 

[ikm19]

Yup never leave your iphone out of your sight and when they connect to their laptops ask them questions that what they doing because don't want to see someone backing it up to their mac and then latter restoring it to a dummy phone.

 

[alfonsog]

How were "explicit" photos taken of employees and customers without them knowing it? Do Apple stores have public restrooms?

Yes, apple stores have public restrooms

 

[tito2020]

ouch that's no good...

peep gate

 

[69Mustang]

How were "explicit" photos taken of employees and customers without them knowing it? Do Apple stores have public restrooms?

Beat me to it. It was the first thing I thought of while reading this story.
Whoever these people are, they seriously need to have their asses kicked.

 

[_Refurbished_]

Such a genius move....

 

[mattopotamus]

Sounds like high school kids working in a retail store.....

Oh wait

Obviously if explicit photos were actually taken that's different. Guys rating girls....ohhhh nooooo

 

[thermodynamic]

Beat me to it. It was the first thing I thought of while reading this story.
Whoever these people are, they seriously need to have their asses kicked.

Only because it's currently a hot topic topical issue. Like putting a piranha in an aquarium fool of guppies, the piranha's first thought is "Food, yum!"
[doublepost=1476313811][/doublepost]

Sounds like high school kids working in a retail store.....

Oh wait

Wait for what? The ages of the accused to be told?

 

[Peace]

Whenever MR says "Political in nature" what they mean is the topic belongs in the PRSI forums.

I'll leave it up to you to figure out what the R S I part means.

carry on !

 

[Bigsk8r]

This seems to be another decisive move on Apples part to go along with the Dash situation. I would rather work with a company that acts decisively and adjusts when proven wrong, than one that is too soft. I doubt they were even close to too harsh here though.

The guys that got fired must be some real jerkwads.

 

[Nr123*123]

Just locker room talk, there are far more important issues, like the Note 7. Terrible. Disaster. Bad. Sad. I will make it great again. That's my plan. Make it great. Plan.

 

[Analog Kid]

I think it's absurd that the Apple Store asks for your password. Brought an iPhone in and when they told me they needed my passcode, I told them I'd just wait in the store and made them bring me the device every time they needed to unlock it.

Brought a MBP in for an overnight repair, and when they told me they needed an administrator password, I created a new account, deleted all of the others and then made them wait while I did a "overwrite empty space" on the drive. She looked at me with alarm, and I just said "this is what backups are for".

I've sent feedback to Apple on this, and it's the only comment I've sent directly to Tim Cook's email. Maybe this story will get some other people to do the same.

 

[ke-iron]

I think that's an issue with any computer repair.
Safest way to is to keep your OS and data on two separate drives. Except you can't do that on Apple laptops anymore, nor phones/tablets. However you can flatten [if not too dead] a phone tablet and after its repair restore from icloud/your computer.

They could've signed out of iCloud and deleted the information on the phone. Or just password protect the drive. I've had my phone repaired for hardware problems before and was not required to remove the password.

 

[imajez]

They could've signed out of iCloud and deleted the information on the phone. Or just password protect the drive. I've had my phone repaired for hardware problems before and was not required to remove the password.

I suggested flattening, then restoring the phone in the post you are replying to.

 

[HarryWarden]

The invasion of privacy used to get the photos and other stuff for rating purpose = big deal.

The actual rating of customers based on looks = who cares? Like it or not, everyone does it or else you would never get a boyfriend/girlfriend because they wouldn't have caught your eye.